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A DAMSEL 
IN DISTRESS 


By 

PELHAM GRENVILLE WODEHOUSE 



A. L. BURT COMPANY 
Publishers New Y ork 

Published by arrangement with George H. Doran Company 



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* COPYRIGHT, 1919, 

BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 


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COPYRIGHT, 1919, 

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PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


TO 

MAUD AND IVAN CARYLL 



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A DAMSEL 
IN DISTRESS 


I 

T NASMUCH as the scene of this story is that historic 
pile, Belpher Castle, in the country of Hampshire, 
England, it would be an agreeable task to open it 
with a leisurely description of the place, followed by 
some notes on the history of the Earls of Marshmore- 
ton who have owned it since the fifteenth century. 
Unfortunately, in these days of rush and hurry a 
novelist works at a disadvantage. He must leap into 
the middle of his tale with as little delay as he would 
employ in boarding a moving street car. He must 
get off the mark with the smooth swiftness of the 
Californian jack rabbit surprised while lunching. 
Otherwise, people throw him aside and go out to 
picture palaces. 

I may briefly remark that the present Lord Marsh- 
moreton is a widower of some forty-eight years; that 
he has two children — a son, Percy Wilbraham Marsh, 
Lord Belpher, who is on the brink of his twenty- 
first birthday, and a daughter. Lady Patricia Maud 
Marsh, who is just twenty; that the chatelaine of 
the castle is Lady Caroline Byng, Lord Marshmore- 
ton’s sister, who married the very wealthy colliery 
9 


10 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 

owner, Clifford Byng, a few years before his death — 
which unkind people say she hastened ; and that she 
has a stepson, Reginald. Give me time to mention 
these few facts and I am done. On the glorious past 
of the Marshmoretons I will not even touch. 

Luckily the loss to literature is not irreparable. 
Lord Marshmoreton himself is engaged upon a history 
of the family, which will doubtless be on every book- 
shelf as soon as his lordship gets it finished. And 
as for the castle and its surroundings, including the 
model dairy and the amber drawing-room, you may 
see them for yourself any Thursday, when Belpher 
is thrown open to the public on payment of a fee 
of one shilling a head. The money is collected by 
Keggs, the butler, and goes to a worthy local charity. 
At least that is the idea; but the voice of calumny is 
never silent and there exists a school of thought, 
headed by Albert, the page boy, which holds that 
Keggs sticks to these shillings like glue and adds 
them to his already considerable savings in the Farm- 
ers and Merchants’ Bank on the left side of the High 
Street in Belpher village, next door to the Odd Fel- 
lows’ Hall. 

With regard to this one can only say that Keggs 
looks far too much like a particularly saintly bishop 
to indulge in any such practices. On the other hand, 
Albert knows Keggs. We must leave the matter 
open. 

Of course appearances are deceptive. Anyone, for 
instance, who had been standing outside the front 
entrance of the castle at eleven o’clock on a certain 
June morning might easily have made a mistake. Such 
a person would probably have jumped to the con- 
clusion that the middle-aged lady of a determined 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


11 


cast of countenance who was standing near the rose 
garden, talking to the gardener and watching the 
young couple strolling on the terrace below, was 
the mother of the pretty girl ; and that she was smiling 
because the latter had recently become engaged to 
the tall, pleasant-faced youth at her side. 

Sherlock Holmes himself might have been misled. 
One can hear him explaining the thing to Watson in 
one of those lightning flashes of inductive reasoning 
of his: “It is the only explanation, my dear Wat- 
son. If the lady were merely complimenting the 
gardener on his rose garden, and if her smile were 
merely caused by the excellent appearance of that rose 
garden, there would be an answering smile on the 
face of the gardener. But, as you see, he looks 
morose and gloomy. 

As a matter of fact the gardener — that is to say, 
the stocky, brown-faced man in shirt sleeves and 
corduroy trousers who was frowning into a can of 
whale-oil solution — was the Earl of Marshmoreton ; 
and there were two reasons for his gloom. He hated 
to be interrupted while w’orking and, furthermore. 
Lady Caroline Byng always got on his nerves, and 
never more so than when, as now, she speculated on 
the possibility of a romance between her stepson 
Reggie and his lordship’s daughter Maud. 

Only his intimates would have recognized in this 
curious corduroy-trousered figure the seventh Earl of 
Marshmoreton. The Lord Marshmoreton who made 
intermittent appearances in London, who lunched 
among bishops at the Athenaeum Club without exciting 
remark, was a correctly dressed gentleman whom no 
one would have suspected of covering his sturdy legs 
in anything but the finest cloth. But if you will 


12 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


glance at your copy of Who's Who and turn up the 
M’s, you will find in the space allotted to the Earl 
the words ''Hobby — Gardening." To which, in a 
burst of modest pride, his lordship has added 
‘^Awarded first prize for Hybrid Teas, Temple 
Flower Show, 1911/* The words tell their own 
story. 

Lord Marshmoreton was the most enthusiastic 
amateur gardener in a land of enthusiastic amateur 
gardeners. He lived for his garden. The love which 
other men expend on their nearest and dearest. Lord 
Marshmoreton lavished on seeds, roses and loamy 
soil. The hatred which some of his order feel for 
socialists and demagogues. Lord Marshmoreton kept 
for rose slugs, rose beetles, and the small, yellowish- 
white insect which is so depraved and sinister a char- 
acter that it goes through life with an alias, being 
sometimes called a rose hopper and sometimes a 
thrip. A simple soul. Lord Marshmoreton, mild and 
pleasant. Yet put him among the thrips and he be- 
came a dealer-out of death and slaughter, a destroyer 
of the class of Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan. 
Thrips feed on the underside of rose leaves, sucking 
their juice and causing them to turn yellow; and 
Lord Marshmoreton’s views on these things were so 
rigid that he would have poured whale-oil solution 
on his grandmother if he had found her on the under- 
side of one of his rose leaves sucking the juice. 

The only time in the day when he ceased to be the 
horny-handed toiler and became the aristocrat was 
in the evening after dinner when, egged on by Lady 
Caroline who gave him no rest in the matter, he 
would retire to his private study and work on his 
history of the family, assisted by his able secretary. 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


13 


Alice Faraday. His progress on that massive work 
was, however, slow. Ten hours in the open air make 
a man drowsy, and too often Lord Marshmoreton 
would fall asleep in mid-sentence to the annoyance 
of Miss Faraday, who was a conscientious girl and 
liked to earn her salary. 

The couple on the terrace had turned. Reggie 
Byng’s face as he bent over Maud was earnest and 
animated, and even from a distance it was possible 
to see how the girl’s eyes lit up at what he was say- 
ing. She was hanging on his words. Lady Caroline’s 
smile became more and more berjevolent. 

"‘They make a charming pair,” she murmured. “I 
wonder what dear Reggie is saying. Perhaps at this 
very moment ” 

She broke off with a sigh of content. She had 
had her troubles over this affair. Dear Reggie, 
usually so plastic in her hands, had displayed an 
unaccountable reluctance to offer his agreeable self to 
Maud, in spite of the fact that never, not even on 
the public platform which she adorned so well, had 
his stepmother reasoned more clearly than she did 
when pointing out to him the advantages of the match. 
It was not that Reggie disliked Maud. He admitted 
that she was a “topper,” on several occasions going 
so far as to describe her as “absolutely priceless.” But 
he seemed reluctant to ask her to marry him. How 
could Lady Caroline know that Reggie’s entire world 
— or such of it as was not occupied by racing cars 
and golf — was filled by Alice Faraday? Reggie had 
never told her. He had not even told Miss Faraday. 

“ perhaps at this very moment,” went on Lady 

Caroline, “the dear boy is proposing to her.” 

Lord Marshmoreton grunted, and continued to peer 


14 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


with a questioning eye in the awesome brew which 
he had prepared for the thrips. 

^‘One thing is very satisfactory/^ said Lady Caro- 
line. “I mean that Maud seems entirely to have got 
over that ridiculous infatuation of hers for that man 
she met in Wales last summer. She could not be 
so cheerful if she were still brooding on that. I hope 
you will admit now, John, that I was right in keeping 
her practically a prisoner here and never allowing 
her a chance of meeting the man again either by 
accident or design. They say absence makes the heart 
grow fonder. Stuff! A girl of Maud’s age falls in 
and out of love half a dozen times a year. I feel sure 
she has almost forgotten the man by now.” 

“Eh?” said Lord Marshmoreton. His mind had 
been far away dealing with green flies. 

“I was speaking about that man Maud met when 
she was staying with Brenda in Wales.” 

“Oh, yes I” 

“Oh, yes!” echoed Lady Caroline, annoyed. “Is 
that the only comment you can find to make? Your 
only daughter becomes infatuated with a perfect 
stranger, a man we have never seen, of whom we 
know nothing, not even his name — nothing except 
that he is an American and hasn’t a penny — Maud 
admitted that. And all you say is, 'Oh, yes !’ ” 

“But it’s all over now, isn’t it? I understood the 
dashed affair was all over.” 

“We hope so. But I should feel far safer if Maud 
were engaged to Reggie. I do think you might take 
the trouble to speak to Maud.” 

“Speak to her? I do speak to her.” Lord Marsh- 
moreton’s brain moved slowly when he was pre- 
occupied with his roses. “We’re on excellent terms.” 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


15 


Lady Caroline frowned impatiently. Hers was an 
rt, vigorous mind, bright and strong like a steel 
p; and her brother’s vagueness and growing habit 
inattention irritated her. 

T mean speak to her about becoming engaged to 
ggie. You are her father. Surely you can at least 
to persuade her.” 

“Can’t coerce a girl!” 

“I never suggested that you should coerce her, as 
you put it. I merely meant that you could point out 
to her, as a father, where her duty and happiness lie.” 

“Drink this!” cried his lordship with sudden fury, 
spraying his can over the nearest bush, and addressing 
his remark to the invisible thrips. He had forgotten 
Lady Caroline completely. “Don’t stint yourselves! 
There’s lots more I” 

A girl came down the steps of the castle and made 
her way toward them. She was a good-looking girl 
with an air of quiet efficiency about her. Her eyes 
were gray and whimsical. Her head was uncovered 
and the breeze stirred her dark hair. She made a 
graceful picture in the morning sunshine, and Reggie 
Byng, sighting her from the terrace, wabbled in his 
tracks, turned pink, and lost the thread of his re- 
marks. The sudden appearance of Alice Faraday 
always affected him like that. 

“I have copied out the notes you made last night, 
Lord Marshmoreton. I typed two copies.” Alice 
Faraday spoke in a quiet, respectful, yet subtly au- 
thoritative voice. She was a girl of great character. 
Previous employers of her services as secretary had 
found her a jewel. To Lord Marshmoreton she was 
rapidly becoming a perfect incubus. Their views on 
the relative importance of gardening and family 


16 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


histories did not coincide. To him the history of 
the Marshmoreton family was the occupation of the 
idle hour; she seemed to think that he ought to re- 
gard it as a life work. She was always coming and 
digging him out of the garden and dragging him 
back to what should have been a purely after-dinner 
task. It was Lord Marshmoreton’s habit when he 
awoke after one of his naps too late to resume work 
to throw out some vague promise of “attending to it 
to-morrow'’; but, he reflected bitterly, the girl ought 
to have the tact and sense to understand that this was 
only polite persiflage and not to be taken literally. 

“They are very rough,’^ continued Alice, addressing 
her conversation to the seat of his lordship’s corduroy 
trousers. Lord Marshmoreton always assumed a 
stooping attitude when he saw Miss Faraday ap- 
proaching with papers in her hand; for he labored 
under a pathetic delusion, of which no amount of 
failures could rid him, that. if she did not see his face 
she would withdraw. “You remember last night you 
promised you would attend to them this morning.” 
She paused long enough to receive a noncommittal 
grunt by way of anwger. “Of course if you’re busy,” 
. . . she said placidly, with a half glance at Lady 
Caroline. That masterful woman could always be 
counted on as an ally in these little encounters. 

“Nothing of the kind!” said Lady Caroline crisply. 
She was still ruffled by the lack of attention which her 
recent utterances had received, and welcomed the 
chance of administering discipline. “Get up at once, 
John, and go in and work.” 

“I am working!” pleaded Lord Marshmoreton. 
Despite his forty-eight years his sister Caroline still 
had the power at times to make him feel like a small 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


17 


boy. She had been a great martinet in the days of 
their mutual nursery. 

^The family history is more important than 
grubbing about in the dirt. I cannot understand why 
you do not leave this sort of thing to MacPherson. 
Why you should pay him liberal wages and then do 
his work for him I cannot see. You know the pub- 
lishers are waiting for the history. Go and attend 
to these notes at once.’’ 

“You promised you would attend to them this morn- 
ing, Lord Marshmoretgn,” said Alice invitingly. 

Lord Marshmoreton clung to his can of whale-oil 
solution with the clutch of a drowning man. None 
knew better than he that these interviews, especially 
when Caroline was present to lend the weight of her 
dominating personality, always ended in the same 
way. ' 

“Yes, yes, yes!” he said. “To-night, perhaps. After 
dinner, eh? Yes, after dinner. That will be capital.” 

“I think you ought to attend to them this morning,” 
said Alice, gently persistent. It really perturbed this 
girl to feel that she was not doing work enough to 
merit her generous salary. And on the subject of 
the history of the Marshmoreton family she was an 
enthusiast. It had a glamour for her. 

Lord Marshmoreton’s fingers relaxed their hold. 
Throughout the rose garden hundreds of spared thrips 
went on with their morning meal, unwitting of doom 
averted. 

“Oh, all right, all right, all right. Come into the 
library.” 

“Very well. Lord Marshmoreton.” Miss Faraday 
turned to Lady Caroline. “I have been looking up 
the trains, Lady Caroline. The best is the twelve- 


18 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


fifteen. It has a dining car, and stops at Belpher if 
signaled.*' 

“Are you going away, Caroline?’* inquired Lord 
Marshmoreton hopefully. 

‘T am giving a short talk to the Social Progress 
League at Lewisham. I shall return to-morrow.** 

“Oh!” said Lord Marshmoreton, hope fading from 
his voice. 

“Thank you, Miss Faraday,** said Lady Caroline. 
“The twelve-fifteen.” 

“The motor will be round at a quarter to twelve.” 

“Thank you. Oh, by the way. Miss Faraday, will 
you call to Reggie as you pass and tell him I wish to 
speak to him?” 

Maud had left Reggie by the time Alice Faraday 
reached him, and that ardent youth was sitting on a 
stone seat smoking a cigarette and entertaining him- 
self with meditations in which thoughts of Alice com- 
peted for precedence with graver reflections connected 
with the subject of the correct stance for his ap- 
proach shots. Reggie’s was a troubled spirit these 
days. He was in love, and he had developed a bad 
slice with his mid-iron. He was practically a soul in 
torment. 

“Lady Caroline asked me to tell you that she wishes 
to speak to you, Mr. Byng.” 

Reggie leaped from his seat. 

“Hullo-ullo-ullo ! There you are! I mean to say, 
what!” 

He was conscious, as was his custom in her presence, 
of a warm, prickly sensation in the small of the back. 
Some kind of elephantiasis seemed to have attacked 
his hands and feet, swelling them to enormous propor- 
tions. He wished profoundly that he could get rid of 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


19 


his habit of yelping with nervous laughter whenever 
he encountered the girl of his dreams. It was calcu- 
lated to give her a wrong impression of a chap — make 
her think him a fearful chump and what not ! 

^‘Lady Caroline is leaving by the twelve-fifteen.’^ 

“That’s good! What I mean to say is — oh, she is, 
is she? I see what you mean.” The absolute necessity 
of saying something at least moderately coherent 
gripped him. He rallied his forces. “You wouldn’t 
care to come for a stroll, after I’ve seen the mater, or 
a row on the lake, or any rot like that, would you?” 

“Thank you very much, but I must go in and help 
Lord Marshmoreton with his book.” 

“What a rotten — I mean what a dam shame 1” The 
pity of it tore at Reggie’s heartstrings. He burned 
with generous wrath against Lord Marshmoreton, that 
modern Simon Legree, who used his capitalistic power 
to make a slave of this girl and keep her toiling indoors 
when all the world was sunshine. 

“Shall I go and ask him if you can’t put it off till 
after dinner?” 

“Oh, no, thanks very much. I’m sure Lord Marsh- 
moreton wouldn’t dream of it.” 

She passed on with a pleasant smile. When he had 
recovered from the effect of this, Reggie proceeded 
slowly to the upper level to meet his stepmother. 

“Hullo, mater ! Pretty fit and so forth ? What did 
you want to see me about ?” 

“Well, Reggie? What is the news?” 

“Eh? What? News? Didn’t you get hold of a 
paper at breakfast? Nothing much in it. Tam Duggan 
beat Alec Fraser three up and two to play at Prest- 
wick. I didn’t notice anything else much. There’s a 
new musical comedy at the Regal. An American 


20 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


piece. Opened last night and seems to be just like 
mother makes.' The Morning Post gave it a topping 
notice. I must trickle up to town and see it some time 
this week.’^ 

Lady Caroline frowned. This slowness in the up- 
take, coming so soon after her brother’s inattention, 
displeased her. 

“No, no, no 1 I mean you and Maud have been talk- 
ing to each other for quite a long time, and she seemed 
very interested in what you were saying. I hoped you 
might have some good news for me.” 

Reggie’s face brightened. He caught her drift. 

“Oh, ah, yes, I see what you mean. No, there wasn’t 
anything of that sort or shape or order.” 

“What were you saying to her, then, that interested 
her so much ?” 

“I was explaining how I landed dead on the pin 
with my spoon out of a sand-trap at the eleventh hole 
yesterday. It certainly was a pretty ripe shot, con- 
sidering. I’d sliced into this bally bunker, don’t 
you know — I simply can’t keep ’em straight with the 
iron nowadays — and there the pill was, grinning up 
at me from the sand. Of course, strictly speaking, I 
ought to have used a niblick, but ” 

“Do you mean to say, Reggie, that, with such an 
excellent opportunity, you did not ask Maud to marry 
you?” 

“I see what you mean. Well, as a matter of 
absolute fact, I, as it were, didn’t !” ^ 

Lady Caroline uttered a wordless sound. 

“By the way, mater,” said Reggie, “I forgot to tell 
you about that. It’s all off !” 

“What!” 

“Absolutely! You see, it appears there’s a chappie 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


21 


unknown for whom Maud has an absolute pash. It 
seems she met this sportsman up in Wales last sum- 
mer. She was caught in the rain and he happened to 
be passing and rallied round with his raincoat, and 
one thing led to another. Always raining in Wales, 
what! Good fishing, though, here and there. Well, 
what I mean is, this cove was so deucedly civil, and 
all that, that now she won’t look at anybody else. He’s 
the blue-eyed boy, and everybody else is an also-ran 
with about as much chance as a blind man with one 
arm trying to get out of a bunker with a toothpick.” 

‘‘What perfect nonsense! I know all about that 
affair. It was just a passing fancy that never meant 
anything. Maud has got over that long ago.” 

“She didn’t seem to think so.” 

“Now, Reggie,” said Lady Caroline tensely, “please 
listen to me. You know that the castle will be full 
of people in a day or two for Percy’s coming-of-age, 
and this next few days may be your last chance of hav- 
ing a real, long, private talk with Maud. I shall be 
seriously annoyed if you neglect this opportunity. 
There is no excuse for the way you are behaving. 
Maud is a charming girl ” 

“Oh, absolutely! One of the best!” 

“Very well, then!” 

“But, mater, what I mean to say is ” 

“I don’t want any more temporizing, Reggie !” 

“No, no! Absolutely not!” said Reggie dutifully, 
wishing he knew what the word meant, and wishing 
also that life had not become so frightfully complex. 

“Now this afternoon, why should you not take 
Maud for a long ride in your car ?” 

Reggie grew more cheerful. At least he had an 
answer for that. 


22 A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 

‘'Can’t be done, I’m afraid. I’ve got to motor into 
town to meet Percy. He’s arriving from Oxford 
this morning. I promised to meet him in town and 
tool him back in the car.” 

“I see. Well, then, why couldn’t you ” 

“I say, mater, dear old soul,” said Reggie hastily, 
“I think you’d better tear yourself away and what not. 
If you’re catching the twelve-fifteen you ought to be 
staggering round to see you haven’t forgotten any- 
thing. There’s the car coming round now.” 

“I wish now I had decided to go by a later train.” 

“No, no, mustn’t miss the twelve-fifteen. Good, 
fruity train! Everybody speaks well of it. Well, 
see you anon, mater. I think you’d better run like a 
hare.” 

“You will remember what I said ?” 

“Oh, absolutely!” 

“Good-by, then. I shall be back to-morrow.” 

Reggie returned slowly to his stone seat. He 
breathed a little heavily as he felt for his cigarette 
case. He felt like a hunted fawn. 

Maud came out of the house, as the car disappeared 
down the long avenue of elms. She crossed the terrace 
to where Reggie sat brooding on life and its problem. 

“Reggie!” 

Reggie turned. 

“Hullo, Maud, dear old thing! Take a seat.” 

Maud sat down beside him. There was a flush on 
her pretty face, and when she spoke her voice quivered 
with suppressed excitement. 

“Reggie,” she said, laying a small hand on his arm, 
“we’re friends, aren’t we?” 

Reggie patted her back paternally. There were few 
people he liked better than Maud. 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


23 


‘'Always have been since the dear old days of child- 
hood, what!’’ 

‘T can trust you, can’t I ?” 

“Absolutely!” 

“There’s something I want you to do for me, Reggie. 
You’ll have to keep it a dead secret, of course.” 

“The strong silent man! That’s me! What is it?” 

“You’re driving into town in your car this after- 
noon, aren’t you, to meet Percy?” 

“That was the idea.” 

“Could you go this morning instead, and take me?” 

“Of course.” 

Maud shook her head. 

“You don’t know what you are letting yourself in 
for, Reggie, or I’m sure you wouldn’t agree so lightly. 
I’m not allowed to leave the castle, you know — because 
of what I was telling you about.” 

“The Chappie?” 

“Yes. So there would be terrible scenes if anybody 
found out.” 

“Never mind, dear old soul. I’ll risk it I None shall 
leam your secret from these lips !” 

“You’re a darling, Reggie!” 

“But what’s the idea ? Why do you want to go to- 
day particularly ?” 

Maud looked over her shoulder. 

“Because” — she lowered her voice, though there 
was no one near — “because he is back in London ! He’s 
a sort of secretary, you know, Reggie, to his uncle, 
and I saw in the paper this morning that the uncle 
returned yesterday after a long voyage in his yacht. 
So he must have come back too. He has to go every- 
where his uncle goes.” 

“And everywhere the uncle went, the Chappie was 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


24 

sure to go !” murmured Reggie. “Sorry ! Didn’t mean 
to interrupt !” 

“I must see him. I haven’t seen him since last sumr 
mer, nearly a whole year! And he hasn’t written to 
me, and I haven’t dared to write to him for fear of 
the letter going wrong. So, you see, I must go. To- 
day’s my only chance. Aunt Caroline has gone away. 
Father will be busy in the garden and won’t notice 
whether I’m here or not. And besides, to-morrow it 
will be too late because Percy will be here. He was 
more furious about the thing than anyone.” 

“Rather the proud young aristocrat, Percy 1” agreed 
Reggie. “I understand absolutely. Tell me just what 
you want me to do.” 

“I want you to pick me up in the car about half a 
mile down the road. You can drop me somewhere in 
Piccadilly. That will be near enough to where I want 
to go. But the most important thing is about Percy. 
You must persuade him to stay and dine in town and 
come back here after dinner. Then I shall be able to 
get back by an afternoon train and no one will know 
I’ve been gone.” 

“That’s simple enough, what! Consider it done. 
When do you want to start?” 

“At once.” 

“I’ll toddle round to the garage and fetch the car.” 
Reggie chuckled amusedly. “Rum thing ! The mater’s 
just been telling me I ought to take you for a drive !” 

“You are a darling, Reggie, really!” 

Reggie gave her back another paternal pat. 

“I know what it means to be in love, dear old soul. 
I say, Maud, old thing, do you find love puts you off 
your stroke? What I mean is, does it m^e you slice 
your approach shots?” 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


25 


Maud laughed. 

‘‘No. It hasn’t had any effect on my game so far. 
I went round in eighty-six the other day.” 

Reggie sighed enviously. 

“Women are wonderful!” he said. “Well, I’ll be 
legging it and fetching the^car. When you’re ready, 
stroll along down the road and wait for me.” 

When he had gone, Maud pulled a small newspaper 
clipping from her pocket. She had extracted it from 
yesterday’s copy of the Morning Post’s society column. 
It contained only a few words : 

Mr. Wilbur Raymond has returned to his residence 
at No. iia Belgrave Square from a prolonged voyage 
in his yacht, the Siren. 

Maud did not know Mr. Wilbur Raymond, and yet 
that paragraph had sent the blood tingling through 
every vein in her body. For as she had indicated to 
Reggie, when the Wilbur Raymonds of this world re- 
turn to their town residences, they bring with them 
their nephew and secretary, Geoffrey Raymond. And 
Geoffrey Raymond was the man Maud had loved ever 
since the day when she had met him in Wales. 


II 


T he sun that had shone so brightly on Belpher 
Castle at noon, when Maud and Reggie Byng 
set out on their journey, shone on the west end of 
London with equal pleasantness at two o’clock. In 
Little Gooch Street all the children of all the small 
shopkeepers, who .support life in that backwater by 
selling each other vegetables and singing canaries, 
were out and about playing curious games of their own 
invention. Cats washed themselves on doorsteps 
preparatory to looking in for lunch at one of the 
numerous garbage cans which dotted the sidewalk. 
Waiters peered austerely from the windows of the two 
Italian restaurants which carry on the Lucretia Borgia 
tradition by means of one shilling and sixpenny table- 
d’hote luncheons. The proprietor of the grocery store 
on the comer was bidding a silent farewell to a tomato 
which even he, though a dauntless optimist, had been 
compelled to recognize as having outlived its utility, 
pn all these things the sun shone with a genial smile. 
Round the corner, in Shaftesbury Avenue, an east 
wind was doing its best to pierce the hardened hides 
of the citizenry; but it did not penetrate into Little 
Gooch Street which, facing south and being narrow 
and sheltered, was enabled practically to bask. 

Mac, the stout guardian of the stage door of the 
Regal Theater, whose gilded front entrance is on the 
avenue, emerged from the little glass case in which the 
26 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


^7 


management kept him and came out to observe life 
and its phenomena with an indulgent eye. Mac was 
feeling happy this morning. His job was a permanent 
one, not influenced by the success or failure of the 
productions which followed one another at the theater 
throughout the year; but he felt, nevertheless, a sort 
of proprietory interest in these ventures and was 
pleased when they secured the approval of the public. 
Last night’s opening, a musical piece by an American 
author and composer, had undoubtedly made a big hit, 
and Mac was glad because he liked what he had seen 
of the company and, in the brief time in which he had 
known him, had come to entertain a warm regard for 
George Bevan, the composer, who had traveled over 
from New York to help with the London production. 

George Bevan turned the corner now, walking 
slowly and, it seemed to Mac, gloomily toward the 
stage door. He was a young man of about twenty- 
seven, tall and well-knit, with an agreeable, clean-cut 
face of which a pair of good and honest eyes were 
the most noticeable feature. His sensitive mouth was 
drawn down a little at the corners, and he looked tired. 

‘‘Morning, Mac.” 

“Good morning, sir.” 

“Anything for me?” 

“Yes, sir, some telegrams. I’ll get ’em. Oh, I’ll 
get ’em,” said Mac, as if reassuring some doubting 
friend and supporter as to his ability to carry through 
a labor of Hercules. 

He disappeared into his glass case. George Bevan 
remained outside in the street surveying the frisking 
children with a somber glance. They seemed to him 
very noisy, very dirty and very young — disgustingly 
young. Theirs was joyous, exuberant youth which 


28 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


made a fellow feel at least sixty. Something was 
wrong with George to-day, for normally he was fond 
of children. Indeed, nonnally he was fond of most 
things. He was a good-natured and cheerful young 
man who liked life and the great majority of those who 
lived it contemporaneously with himself. He had no 
enemies and many friends. 

But to-day he had noticed from the moment he had 
got out of bed that something was amiss with the 
world. Either he was in the grip of .some divine dis- 
content due to the highly developed condition of his 
soul, or else he had a grouch. One of the two. Or 
it might have been the reaction from the emotions 
of the previous night. On the morning after an open- 
ing your sensitive artist is always apt to feel as if 
he had been dried over a barrel. 

Besides, last night there had been a supper party 
after the performance at the flat which the comedian 
of the troupe had rented in Jermyn Street, a forced, 
rowdy supper party where a number of tired people 
with overstrained nerves had seemed to feel it a duty 
to be artificially vivacious. It had lasted till four 
o'clock, when the morning papers with the notices 
arrived ; and George had not got to bed till four-thirty. 
These things color the mental outlook. 

Mac reappeared. 

“Here you are, sir.” 

“Thanks.” 

George put the telegrams in his pocket. A cat, on 
its way back from lunch, paused beside him in order 
to use his leg as a serviette. George tickled it under 
the ear abstractedly. He was always courteous to cats. 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


^9 


but to-day he went through the movements per- 
functorily and without enthusiasm. 

The cat moved on. Mac became conversational. 

‘They tell me the piece was a hit last night, sir.” 

“It seemed to go very well.” 

“My missus saw it from the gallery, and all the first- 
nighters was speaking very ’ighly of it. There’s a 
regular click, you know, sir, over here in London, that 
goes to all the first nights in the gallery. Tghly critical 
they are always. Specially if it’s an American piece 
like this one. If they don’t like it they precious soon 
let you know. My missus says they was all speakin’ 
very ^ighly of it. My missus says she ain’t seen a 
livelier show for a long time, and she’s a great theater- 
goer. My missus says they was all specially pleased 
with the music.” 

“That’s good.” 

“The Morning Leader give it a fine write-up. How 
was the rest of the papers ?” 

“Splendid, all of them. I haven’t seen the evening 
papers yet. I came out to get them.” 

Mac looked down the street. 

“There’ll be a rehearsal this afternoon, I suppose, 
sir? Here’s Miss Dore coming along.” 

George followed his glance. A tall girl in a tailor- 
made suit of blue was coming toward them. Even at 
a distance one caught the genial personality of the new 
arrival. It seemed to go before her like a heartening 
breeze. She picked her way carefully through the 
children crawling on the sidewalk. She stopped for a 
moment and said something to one of them. The child 
grinned. Even the proprietor of the grocery store 
appeared to brighten up at the sight of her, as the 
sight of some old friend. 


30 


A DAMSEL LSr DISTRESS 


“How's business, Bill?" she called to him, as she 
passed the spot where he stood brooding on the 
mortality of tomatoes. And though he replied 
“Rotten!" a faint, grim smile did nevertheless flicker 
across his tragic mask. 

Billie Dore, who was one of the chorus of George 
Bevan’s musical comedy, had an attractive face, a 
mouth that laughed readily, rather bright golden hair 
■ — which, she was fond of insisting with perfect truth, 
was genuine though appearances were against it — 
and steady blue eyes. The latter were frequently em- 
ployed by her in quelling admirers who were encour- 
aged by the former to become too ardent. Billie’s 
views on the opposite sex who forgot themselves were 
as rigid as those of Lord Marshmoreton concerning 
thrips. She liked men, and she would signify this 
liking in a practical manner by lunching and dining 
with them, but she was entirely self-supporting and 
when men overlooked that fact she reminded them of 
it in no uncertain voice, for she was a girl of ready 
speech and direct. 

“’Morning, George. ’Morning, Mac. Any mail?" 

“I’ll see, miss." 

“How did your better four-fifths like the show, 
Mac?" 

“I was just telling Mr. Bevan, miss, that the missus 
said she ’adn’t seen a livelier show for a long time." 

“Fine. I knew I’d be a hit. Well, George, how’s 
the boy this bright afternoon ?" 

“Limp and pessimistic." 

“That comes of sitting up till four in the morning 
with festive hams." 

“You were up as late as I was, and you look like 
Little Eva after a night of sweet, childish slumber." 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


31 


“Yes, but I drank ginger ale and didn’t smoke 
eighteen cigars. And yet I don’t know, I think I must 
be getting old, George. All-night parties seem to 
have lost their charm. I was ready to quit at one 
o’clock, but it didn’t seem matey. I think I’ll marry 
a farmer and settle down.” 

George was amazed. He had not expected to find 
his present view of life shared in this quarter. 

“I was just thinking myself,” he said, feeling not 
for the first time how different Billie was from the 
majority of those with whom his profession brought 
him in contact, “how flat it all was. The show busi- 
ness, I mean, and these darned first nights, and the 
party after the show which you can’t sidestep. Some- 
thing tells me I’m about through.” 

Billie Dore nodded. 

“Anybody with any sense is always about through 
wdth the show business. I know I am. If you think 
I’m wedded to my art let me tell you I’m going to get 
a divorce the first chance that comes along. It’s funny 
about the show business — the way one drifts into it 
and sticks, I mean. Take me, for example. Nature 
had it all doped out for me to be the belle of Hicks 
Corners. What I ought to have done was to buy a 
gingham bonnet and milk cows. But I would come 
to the great city and help brighten up the tired business 
man.” 

“I didn’t know you were fond of the country, 
Billie.” 

“Me? I wrote the words and music. Didn’t you 
know I was a country kid ? My dad ran a Bide A Wee 
Home for flowers, and I used to know them all by 
their middle names. He was a nursery gardener out 
in Indiana. I tell you, when I see a rose nowadays, 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


S2 

I shake its hand and say: 'Well, well, Cyril, how's 
everything with you? And how are Joe and Jack and 
Jimmy and all the rest of the boys at home?’ Do you 
know how I used to put in my time the first few nights 
I was over here in London? I used to hang round 
Covent Garden with my head back, sniffing. The boys 
that mess about with the flowers there used to stub 
their toes on me so often that they got to look on me 
as part of the scenery.” 

"That’s where we ought to have been last night.” 

"We’d have had a better time. Say, George, did 
you see the awful mistake on nature’s part that Babe 
Sinclair showed up with toward the middle of the 
proceedings? You must have noticed him, because 
he took up more room than any one man was entitled 
to. His name was Spenser Gray.” 

George recalled having been introduced to a fat man 
of his own age who answered to that name. 

"It’s a darned shame,” said Billie indignantly. "Babe 
is only a kid. This is the first show she’s been in. And 
I happen to know there’s an awfully nice boy over in 
New York crazy to marry her. And I’m certain this 
gink is giving her a raw deal. He tried to get hold 
of me about a week ago, but I turned him down hard; 
and I suppose he thinks Babe is easier. And it’s no 
good talking to her ; she thinks he’s wonderful. That’s 
another kick I have against the show business. It 
seems to make girls such darned chumps! Well, I 
wonder how much longer Mr. Arbuckle is going to 
be retrieving my mail. What ho within there. Fatty?” 

Mac came out, apologetic, carrying letters. 

"Sorry, miss. By an oversight I put you among 
the G’s.” 

"All’s well that ends well. Tut me among the G’s.’ 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


33 


There’s a good title for a song for you, George. Excuse 
me while I grapple with the correspondence. I’ll bet 
half of these are mash notes. I got three between the 
first and second acts last night. Why the nobility and 
gentry of this burg should think that I’m their affinity 
just because I’ve got golden hair — which is perfectly 
genuine, Mac, I can show you the pedigree — ^and 
because I earn an honest living singing off the key, is 
more than I can understand.” 

Mac leaned his massive shoulders comfortably 
against the building and resumed his chat. 

‘T expect you’re feeling very ’appy to-day, sir?” 

George pondered. He was certainly feeling better 
since he had seen Billie Dore, but he was far from 
being himself. 

‘T ought to be, I suppose, but I’m not.” 

“Ah, you’re getting blarzy, sir, that’s what it is. 
You’ve ’ad too much of the fat, you ’ave. This piece 
was a big ’it in America, wasn’t it ?” 

“Yes. It ran over a year in New York, and there 
are three companies of it out now.” 

“That’s ’ow it is, you see. You’ve gone and got 
blarzy. Too big a ’elping of success you’ve ’ad.” Mac 
wagged a head like a harvest moon. “You aren’t a 
married man, are you, sir?” 

Billie Dore finished skimming through her mail, and 
crumpled the letters up into a large ball, which she 
handed to Mac. 

“Here’s something for you to read in your spare 
moments, Mac. Glance through them any time you 
have a suspicion you may be a chump, and you’ll have 
the comfort of knowing that there are others. What 
were you saying about being married ?” 


S4 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


‘‘Mr. Bevan and I was ^aving a talk about ’im being 
blarzy, miss.’' 

“Are you blarzy, George ?” 

“So Mac says.” 

“And why is he blarzy, miss?” demanded Mac 
rhetorically. 

“Don’t ask me,” said Billie. “It’s not my fault.” 

“It’s because, as I was saying, ’e’s ’ad too big a 
’elping of success, and because ’e ain’t a married man. 
You did say you wasn’t a married man, didn’t you, 
sir?” 

“I didn’t. But I’m not.” 

“That’s ’ow it is, you see. You pretty soon gets 
sick of pulling off good things, if you ain’t got nobody 
to pat you on the back for doing of it. Why, when 
I was single, if I got ’old of a sure thing for the three- 
o’clock race and picked up a couple of quid, the thrill 
of it didn’t seem to linger somehow. But now, if some 
of the gentlemen that come ’ere put me onto something 
safe and I make a bit, ’arf the fascination of it is 
taking the stuff ’ome and rolling it onto the kitchen 
table and ’aving ’er pat me on the back.” 

“How about when you lose?” 

“I don’t tell ’er,” said Mac simply. 

“You seem to understand the art of being happy, 
Mac.” 

“It ain’t an art, sir. It’s just gettin’ ’old of the 
right little woman and ’aving a nice little ’ome of your 
own to go back to at night.” 

“Mac,” said Billie admiringly, “you talk like a Tin 
Pan Alley song hit, except that you’ve left out the 
scent of honeysuckle and old Mister Moon climbing 
up over the trees. Well, you’re quite right. I’m all 
for the simple and domestic myself. If I could find 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


35 


the right man, and he didn’t see me coming and duck, 
Fd become one of the Mendelssohn’s March Daughters 
right away. Are you going, George? There’s a 
rehearsal at two-thirty for cuts.” 

"‘I want to get the evening papers and send off a 
cable or two. See you later.” 

“We shall meet at Philippi.’^ 

Mac eyed George’s retreating back till he had turned 
the corner. 

nice, pleasant gentleman, Mr. Bevan,” he said. 
‘Too bad ’e’s got the pip the way ’e ’as, just after 
’avin’ a big success like this ’ere. Comes of bein’ a 
artist, I suppose.” 

Miss Dore dived into her vanity case and produced 
a puff, with which she proceeded to powder her nose. 

“All composers are nuts, Mac. I was in a show 
once where the manager was panning the composer 
because there wasn’t a number in the score that had a 
tune to it. The poor geek admitted they weren’t very 
tuney, but said the thing about his music was that it 
had such a wonderful aroma. They all get that way. 
The jazz seems to go to their heads. George is all 
fight though, and don’t let anyone tell you different.” 

“Have you known him long, miss?” 

“About five years. I was a stenographer in the 
house that published his songs when I first met him. 
And there’s another thing you’ve got to hand it to 
George for — he hasn’t let success give him a swelled 
head. The money that boy makes is sinful, Mac. He 
wears thousand-dollar bills next to his skin winter and 
summer. But he’s just the same as he was when I 
first knew him, when he was just hanging round 
Broadway looking out for a chance to be allowed to 
slip a couple of interpolated numbers into any old 


86 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


show that came along. Yes. Put it in your diary, 
Mac, and write it on your cuff, George Bevan^s all 
right. He's an ace." 

Unconscious of these eulogies which, coming from 
one whose judgment he respected, might have cheered 
him up, George wandered down Shaftesbury Avenue, 
feeling more depressed than ever. The sun had gone 
in for the time being, and the east wind was frolicking 
round him like a playful puppy patting him with a cold 
paw, nuzzling his ankles, bounding away and bounding 
back again, and behaving generally as east winds do 
when they discover a victim who has come out without 
his spring overcoat. It was plain to George now that 
the sun and the wind were a couple of confidence 
tricksters, working together as a team. The sun had 
disarmed him with specious promises and an air of 
cheery good fellowship and had delivered him into the 
hands of the wind which was now going through him 
with the swift thoroughness of the professional hold-up 
artist. He quickened his steps and began to wonder 
if he was so sunk in senile decay as to have acquired 
a liver. 

He discarded the theory as repellent. And yet there 
must be a reason for his depression. To-day of all 
days, as Mac had pointed out, he had everything to 
make him happy. Popular as he was in America, this 
was the first piece of his to be produced in London, 
and there was no doubt that it was a success of unusual 
dimensions. And yet he felt no elation. 

He reached Picadilly and turned westward. And 
then, as he passed the gates of the In and Out Club, he 
had a moment of clear vision and understood every- 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


37 


thing. He was depressed because he was bored and 
he was bored because he was lonely. Mac, that solid 
thinker, had been right. The solution of the problem 
of life was to get hold of the right girl and have a 
home to go back to at night. He was mildly surprised 
that he had tried in any other direction for an ex- 
planation of his gloom. It was all the more inexplica- 
ble in that fully eighty per cent of the lyrics which he 
had set in the course of his musical comedy career had 
had that thought at the back of them. 

George gave himself up to an orgy of sentimentality. 
He seemed to be alone in the world which had paired 
itself off into a sort of seething welter of happy 
couples. Taxicabs full of happy couples rolled by 
every minute. Passing omnibuses creaked beneath 
the weight of happy couples. The very policeman 
across the street had just grinned at a flitting shop- 
girl, and she had smiled back at him. The only female 
in London who did not appear to be attached was a 
girl in brown who was coming along the sidewalk at 
a leisurely pace, looking about her in a manner that 
suggested that she found Piccadilly a new and stimu- 
lating spectacle. 

As far as George could see she was an extremely 
pretty girl, small and dainty, with a proud little tilt 
to her head and the jaunty walk that spoke of perfect 
health. She was, in fact, precisely the sort of girl 
that George felt he could love with all the stored-up 
devotion of an old buffer of twenty-seven who had 
squandered none of his rich nature in foolish flirta- 
tions. He had just begun to weave a rose-tinted 
romance about their two selves, when a cold reaction 
set in. Even as he paused to watch the girl threading 
her way through the crowd, the east wind jabbed an 


38 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


icy finger down the back of his neck and the chill of it 
sobered him. After all, he reflected bitterly, this girl 
was only alone because she was on her way somewhere 
to meet some confounded man. Besides, there was 
no earthly chance of getting to know her. You can't 
rush up to pretty girls in the street and tell them you 
are lonely. At least you can, but it doesn't get you 
anywhere except the police station. George's gloom 
deepened, a thing he would not have believed possible 
a moment before. He felt that he had been born too 
late. The restraints of modern civilization irked him. 
It was not, he told himself, like this in the good old 
days. 

In the Middle Ages, for example, this girl would 
have been a damsel ; and in that happy time practically 
everybody whose technical rating was that of damsel 
was in distress and only too willing to waive the 
formalities in return for services rendered by the 
casual passer-by. But the twentieth century is a 
prosaic age, when girls are merely girls and have 
no troubles at all. Were he to stop this girl in brown 
and assure her that his aid and comfort were at her 
disposal, she would undoubtedly call that large police- 
man from across the way, and the romance would 
begin and end within the space of thirty seconds or, 
if the policeman were a quick mover, rather less. 

Better to dismiss dreams and return to the practical 
side of life by buying the evening papers from the 
shabby individual beside him who had just thrust an 
early edition in his face. After all notices are notices, 
even when the heart is aching. George felt in his 
pocket for the necessary money, found emptiness, and 
remembered that he had left all his ready funds at 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


39 


his hotel. It was just one of the things he might have 
expected on a day like this. 

The man with the papers had the air of one whose 
business is conducted on purely cash principles. There 
was only one thing to be done, return to the hotel, 
retrieve his money, and try to forget the weight of the 
world and its cares in lunch. And from the hotel he 
could dispatch the two or three cables which he wanted 
to send to New York. 

The girl in brown was quite close now, and George 
was enabled to get a clearer glimpse of her. She more 
than fulfilled the promise she had given at a distance. 
Had she been constructed to his own specifications, 
she could not have been more acceptable in George’s 
sight. And now she was going out of his life for- 
ever. With an overwhelming sense of pathos, for 
there is no pathos more bitter than that of parting 
from someone we have never met, George hailed a 
taxicab which crawled at the side of the road and, 
with all the refrains of all the sentimental song hits 
he had ever composed ringing in his ears, got in and 
passed away. 

"'A rotten world,” he mused, as the cab, after pro- 
ceeding a couple of yards, came to a standstill in a 
block of the traffic. ‘'A dull, flat bore of a world, in 
which nothing happens or ever will happen. Even 
when you take a cab, it just sticks and doesn’t move. 

At this point, the door of the cab opened and the 
girl in brown jumped in. 

*T’m so sorry,” she said breathlessly, ‘'but would 
you mind hiding me, please !” 


Ill 


G eorge hid her. He did it, too, without wasting 
precious time by asking questions. In a situation 
which might well have thrown the quickest witted of 
men off his balance, he acted with promptitude, in- 
telligence and dispatch. The fact is, George had for 
years been an assiduous golfer; and there is no finer 
school for teaching concentration and a strict attention 
to the matter in hand. Few crises, however unex- 
pected, have the power to disturb a man who has so 
conquered the weakness of the flesh as to have trained 
himself to bend his left knee, raise his left heel, swing 
his arms well out from the body, twist himself into 
the shape of a corkscrew, and use the muscles of the 
wrist, at the same time keeping his head still and his 
eye on the ball. It is estimated that there are twenty- 
three important points to be borne in mind simultane- 
ously while making a drive at golf; and to the man 
who has mastered the art of remembering them all the 
task of hiding girls in taxicabs is mere child’s play. 
To pull down the blinds on the side of the vehicle 
nearest the curb was with George the work of a 
moment. Then he leaned out of the center window 
in such a manner as completely to screen the interior 
of the cab from public view. 

‘Thank you so much,” murmured a voice behind 
him. It seemed to come from the floor. 

“Not at all,” said George, trying a sort of vocal 
chipshot out of the corner of his mouth, designed to 
40 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


41 


lift his voice backward and lay it dead inside the 
cab. 

He gazed upon Picadilly with eyes from which the 
scales had fallen. Reason told him that he was still 
in Picadilly. Otherwise it would have seemed in- 
credible to him that this could be the same street which 
a moment before he had passed judgment upon and 
found flat and uninteresting. True, in its salient 
features it had altered little. The same number of 
stodgy-looking people moved up and down. The 
buildings retained their air of not having had a bath 
since the days of the Tudors. The east wind still 
blew. But, though superficially the same, in reality 
Piccadilly had altered completely. Before it had been 
just Piccadilly. Now it was a golden street in the 
City of Romance, a main thoroughfare of Bagdad, 
one of the principal arteries of the capital of Fairy- 
land. A rose-colored mist swam before George’s eyes. 
His spirits, so low but a few moments back, soared 
like a good niblick shot out of the bunker of gloom. 
The years fell away from him, till in an instant, from 
being a rather poorly preserved, liverish graybeard 
of sixty-five or so, he became a sprightly lad of twenty- 
one in a world of springtime and flowers and laughing 
brooks. In other words, taking it by and large, George 
felt pretty good. The impossible had happened; 
heaven had sent him an adventure ; and he didn’t care 
if it snowed. 

It was possibly the rose-colored mist before his eyes 
that prevented him from observing the hurried ap- 
proach of a faultlessly attired young man, aged about 
twenty-one, who during George’s preparations for 
insuring privacy in his cab had been galloping in 
pursuit in a resolute manner that suggested a well- 


'42 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


dressed bloodhound somewhat overfed and out of con- 
dition. Only when this person stopped and began to 
pant within a few inches of his face did he become 
aware of his existence. 

“You, sir!” said the bloodhound, removing a gleam- 
ing silk hat, mopping a pink forehead, and replacing 
the luminous superstructure once more in position. 
“You, sir!” 

Whatever may be said of the possibility of love at 
first sight, in which theory George was now a con- 
firmed believer, there can be no doubt that an exactly 
opposite phenomenon is of frequent occurrence. 
After one look at some people even friendship is im- 
possible. Such a one, in George’s opinion, was this 
gurgling excrescence underneath the silk hat. He 
comprised in his single person practically all the 
qualities which George disliked most. He was, for a 
young man, extraordinarily obese. Already a second 
edition of his chin had been published, and the per- 
fectly cut morning coat which incased his upper sec- 
tion bulged out in an opulent semicircle. He wore a 
little mustache, which to George’s prejudiced eye 
seemed more a complaint than a mustache. His face 
was red, his manner dictatorial and he was touched 
in the wind. Take him for all in all, he looked like 
a bit of bad news. 

George had been educated at Lawrenceville and 
Harvard, and had subsequently had the privilege of 
mixing socially with many of New York’s most promi- 
nent theatrical managers; so he knew how to behave 
himself. No Vere de Vere could have exhibited greater 
repose of manner. 

“And what,” he inquired suavely, leaning a little 
farther out of the cab, “is eating you. Bill ?” 


A DAMSEL IN DISTKESS 


43 


A messenger boy, two shabby men engaged in non- 
essential industries, and a shopgirl paused to observe 
the scene. Time was not of the essence to these con- 
firmed sightseers. The shopgirl was late already, so 
it didn’t matter if she was any later; the messenger 
boy had nothing on hand except a message marked 
‘‘Important : Rush” ; and as for the two shabby men, 
their only immediate plans consisted of a vague in- 
tention of getting to some public house and leaning 
against the wall; so George’s time was their time. 
One of the pair put his head on one side and said 
“What ho !” the other picked up a cigar stub from the 
gutter and began to smoke. 

“A young lady just got into your cab,^’ said the 
stout young man. 

“Surely not ?” said George. 

“What the devil do you mean — surely not?” 

“I’ve been in the cab all the time, and I should 
have noticed it.” 

At this juncture the block in the traffic was relieved 
and the cab bowled smartly on for some fifty yards, 
when it was again halted. George, protruding from 
the window like a snail, was entertained by the 
spectacle of the pursuit. The hunt was up. Short 
of throwing his head up and baying, the stout young 
man behaved exactly as a bloodhound in similar cir- 
cumstances would have conducted itself. He broke 
into a jerky gallop, attended by his self-appointed as- 
sociates; and, considering that the young man was 
so stout, that the messenger boy considered it unpro- 
fessional to hurry, that the shopgirl had doubts as 
to whether sprinting was quite ladylike, and that the 
two Bohemians were moving at a quicker gait than a 
shuffle for the first occasion in eleven years, the 


44 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


cavalcade made good time. The cab was still stationary 
when they arrived in a body. 

“Here he is, guv'nor,’' said the messenger boy, 
removing a bead of perspiration with the rush mes- 
sage. 

“Here he is, guv'nor,” said the nonsmoking Bo- 
hemian. “What ho 

“Here I am!’' agreed George affably. “And what 
can I do for you ?” 

The smoker spat appreciatively at a passing dog. 
The point seemed to him well taken. Not for many a 
day had he so enjoyed himself. In an arid world con- 
taining too few goes of gin and too many policemen, 
a world in which the poor were oppressed and could 
seldom enjoy even a quiet cigar without having their 
fingers trodden upon, he foimd himself for the moment 
contented, happy and expectant. This looked like a 
row between toffs, and of all things which most 
intrigued him a row between toffs ranked highest. 

“R 1” he said approvingly. “Now you’re torkin’ 1” 

The shopgirl had espied an acquaintance in the 
crowd. She gave tongue. 

“Mordee! Cummere! Cummere quick! Sumfin’ 
hap’nin’.” 

Maudie, accompanied by perhaps a dozen more of 
London’s millions, added herself to the audience. 
These all belonged to the class which will gather round 
and watch silently while a motorist mends a tire. They 
are not impatient. They do not call for rapid and 
continuous action. A mere hole in the ground, which 
of all sights is perhaps the least vivid and dramatic, 
is enough to grip their attention for hours at a time. 
They stared at George and George’s cab with unblink- 
ing gaze. They did not know what would happen or 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


45 


when it would happen, but they intended to wait till 
something did happen. It might be for years or it 
might be forever, but they meant to be there when 
things began to occur. 

Speculations became audible. 

*'Wot is it? ^Naccident?’* 

‘^Nah I Gent ’ad ’is pocket picked !’* 

'Two toffs ’ad a scrap!” 

"Feller bilked the cabman!” 

A skeptic made a cynical suggestion. 

"They’re doin’ of it for the pictures.” 

The idea gained instant popularity. 

"’Jearthat? It’s a fillum!” 

"Wot o’, Charlie!” 

"The kemerer’s ’idden in the keb.” 

"Wot’ll they be up to next!” 

A red-nosed spectator, with a Lay of collar studs 
harnessed to his stomach, started another school of 
thought. He spoke with decision, as one having au- 
thority : 

"Nothin’ of the blinkin’ kind! The fat un’s bin 
’avin’ one or two round the comer, and it’s gom and 
got into ’is ’ead !” 

The driver of the cab, who till now had been osten- 
tatiously unaware that there was any sort of disturb- 
ance among the lower orders, suddenly became hu- 
manly inquisitive. 

"What’s it all about ?” he asked, swinging round and 
addressing George’s head. 

"Exactly what I want to know,” said George. He 
indicated the collar-stud merchant. "The gentleman 
over there with the portable bargain counter seems to 
me to have the best theory.” 

The stout young man, whose peculiar behavior had 


46 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


drawn all this flattering attention from the many- 
headed and who appeared considerably ruffled by the 
publicity, had been puffing noisily during the forego- 
ing conversation. Now, having recovered sufficient 
breath to resume the attack, he addressed himself to 
George once more. 

“Damn you, sir, will you let me look inside that 
cab?’^ 

“Leave me,’’ said George ; “I would be alone.” 

“There is a young lady in that cab. I saw her get 
in, and I have been watching ever since and she has 
not got out, so she is there now.” 

George nodded approval of this close reasoning. 

“Your argument seems to be without a flaw. But 
what then? We applaud the Man of Logic, but what 
of the Man of Action? What are you going to do 
about it?” 

“Get out of my way !” 

“I won’t.” 

“Then I’ll force my way in !” 

“If you try it I shall infallibly bust you one on the 
jaw.” 

The stout young man drew back a pace. 

“You can’t do that sort of thing, you know.” 

“I know I can’t,” said George, “but I shall. In this 
life, my dear sir, we must be prepared for every emer- 
gency. We must distinguish between the unusual and 
the impossible. It would be unusual for a compara- 
tive stranger to lean out of a cab window and soak 
you one, but you appear to have laid your plans on 
the assumption that it would be impossible. Let this 
be a lesson to you !” 

“I tell you what it is ” 

“The advice I give to every young man starting life 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


47 


is 'Never confuse the unusual with the impossible!' 
Take the present case, for instance. If you had only 
realized the possibility of somebody some day busting 
you on the jaw when you tried to get into a cab, you 
might have thought out dozens of crafty schemes for 
dealing with the matter. As it is you are unprepared. 
The thing comes on you as a surprise. The whisper 
flies round the clubs : 'Poor old What's-His-Name has 
been taken unawares. He cannot cope with the situa- 
tion I’ " 

The man with the collar studs made another diag- 
nosis. He was seeing clearer and clearer into the thing 
every minute. 

"Looney 1" he decided. "This 'ere one's bin moppin' 
of it up, and the one in the keb's orf 'is bloomin' onion. 
That's why 'e’s standin’ up instead of settin'. 'E won’t 
set down 'cept you bring 'im a bit o' toast, 'cos he 
thinks 'e's a poached egg." 

George beamed upon the intelligent fellow. 

"Your reasoning is admirable, but " 

He broke off here, not because he had not more to 
say but for the reason that the stout young man, now 
in quite a Berserk frame of mind, made a sudden 
spring at the cab door and clutched the handle, which 
he was about to wrench when George acted with all 
the promptitude and decision which had marked his 
behavior from the start. 

It was a situation which called for the nicest judg- 
ment. To allow the assailant free play with the 
handle, or even to wrestle with him for its possession, 
entailed the risk that the door might open and reveal 
the girl. To bust the young man on the jaw as prom- 
ised, on the other hand, was not in George’s eyes a 
practical policy. Excellent a deterrent as the threat 


48 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


of such a proceedii% might be, its actual accomplish- 
ment was not to be thought of. Jails yawn and ac- 
tions for assault lie in wait for those who go about the 
place busting their fellows on the jaw. No, something 
swift, something decided and immediate was indicated, 
but something that stopped short of technical battery. 

George brought his hand round with a sweep and 
knocked the stout young man's silk hat off. 

The effect was magical. We all of us have our 
Achilles heel, and — paradoxically enough — in the case 
of the stout young man that heel was his hat. Superbly 
built by the only hatter in London who can construct a 
silk hat that is a silk hat, and freshly ironed by loving 
hands but a brief hour before at the only shaving-par- 
lor in London where ironing is ironing and not a bru- 
tal attack, it was his pride and joy. To lose it was 
like losing his trousers. It made him feel insufficiently 
clad. With a passionate cry like that of some wild 
creature deprived of its young, the erst-while Berserk 
released the handle and sprang in pursuit. At the 
same moment the traffic moved on again. 

The last George saw was a group scene with the 
stout young man in the middle of it. The hat had 
been popped up into the infield, where it had been 
caught by the messenger boy. The stout young man 
was bending over it and stroking it with soothing 
fingers. It was too far off for anything to be audible, 
but he seemed to George to be murmuring words of 
endearment to it. Then, placing it on his head, he 
darted out into the road and George saw him no more. 
The audience remained motionless, staring at the spot 
where the incident had happened. They would con- 
tinue to do this till the next policeman came along and 
moved them on. 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


49 


With a pleasant wave of farewell, in case any of 
them might be glancing in his direction, George drew 
in his body and sat down. 

The girl in brown had risen from the floor, if she 
had ever been there, and was now seated composedly 
at the farther end of the cab. 


IV 


W ELL, that^s that T’ said George. 

‘Tm so much obliged, ’’ said the girl. 

“It was a pleasure,'’ said George. 

He was enabled now to get a closer, more leisurely, 
and much more satisfactory view of this distressed 
damsel than had been his good fortune up to the pres- 
ent. Small details which, when he had first caught 
sight of her, distance had hidden from his view, now 
presented themselves. Her eyes, he discovered, which 
he had supposed brown, were only brown in their gen- 
eral color scheme. They were shot with attractive little 
flecks of gold, matching perfectly the little streaks of 
gold which the sun, coming out again on one of his 
flying visits and now shining benignantly once more 
on the world, revealed in her hair. Her chin was 
square and determined, but its resoluteness was contra- 
dicted by a dimple and by the pleasant good humor of 
the mouth; and a further softening of the face was 
effected by the nose, which seemed to have started out 
with the intention of being dignified and aristocratic, 
but had defeated its purpose by tilting very slightly at 
the tip. This was a girl who would take chances, but 
would take them with a smile and laugh when she lost. 

George was but an amateur physiognomist, but he 
could read what was obvious in the faces he encoun- 
tered ; and the more he looked at this girl the less was 
he able to understand the scene which had just oc- 
curred. The thing mystified him completely. For all 
50 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


51 


her good humor, there was an air, a manner, a some- 
thing capable and defensive about this girl with which 
he could not imagine any man venturing to take liber- 
ties. The gold-brown eyes, as they met his now, were 
friendly and smiling, but he could imagine them freez- 
ing into a stare baleful enough and haughty enough 
to quell such a person as the silk-hatted young man 
with a single glance. Why then had that superfatted 
individual been able to demoralize her to the extent 
of flying to the shelter of strange cabs ? She was com- 
posed enough now, it was true, but it had been quite 
plain that at the moment when she entered the taxi 
her nerve had momentarily forsaken her. These were 
mysteries here beyond George. 

The girl looked steadily at George and George looked 
steadily at her for the space of perhaps ten seconds. 
She seemed to George to be summing him up, weigh- 
ing him. That the inspection proved satisfactory was 
shown by the fact that at the end of this period she 
smiled. Then she laughed, a clear, pealing laugh which 
to George was far more musical than the most popu- 
lar song hit he had ever written. 

‘T suppose you are wondering what it’s all about?” 
she said. 

This was precisely what George was wondering most 
consumedly. 

‘"No, no,” he said, ‘'not at all. It’s not my business.” 

“And of course you’re much too well-bred to be in- 
quisitive about other people’s business ?” 

“Of course I am. What was it all about?” 

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you.” 

“But what am I to say to the cabman ?” 

“I don’t know. What do men usually say to cab- 
men ?’^ 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


'T mean, he will feel very hurt if I don’t give him a 
full explanation of all this. He stooped from his 
pedestal to make inquiries just now. Condescension 
like that surely deserves some recognition.” 

“Give him a nice big tip.” 

George was reminded of his reason for being in the 
cab. 

“I ought to have asked you before,” he said. “Where 
can I drive you?” 

“Oh, I mustn’t steal your cab. Where were you 
going?” 

“I was going back to my hotel. I came out without 
any money, so I shall have to go there first to get 
some.” 

The girl started. 

“What’s the matter ?” asked George. 

“I’ve lost my purse !” 

“Good Lord! Had it much in it?” 

“Not very much. But enough to buy a ticket home. ^ 

“Any use my asking where that is ?” 

“None, I’m afraid.” 

“I wasn’t going to, of course.” 

“Of course not. That’s what I adm.ire so much in 
you. You aren’t inquisitive.” 

George reflected. 

“There’s only one thing to be done. You will have 
to wait in the cab at the hotel while I go and get some 
money. Then, if you’ll let me, I can lend you what you 
require.” 

“It’s much too kind of you. Could you manage 
eleven shillings ?” 

“Easily. I’ve just had a legacy.” 

“Of course, if you think I ought to be economical, 
I’ll go third class. That would only be five shillings. 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


53 


Ten and six is the first-class fare. So you see the 
place I want to get to is two hours from London.” 

‘‘Well, that’s something to know.” 

“But not much, is it?” 

“I think I had better lend you a sovereign. Then 
you’ll be able to buy a lunch basket.” • 

“You think of everything. And you’re perfectly 
right. I shall be starving. But how do you know you 
will get the money back ?” 

“I’ll risk it.” 

“V/ell, then, I shall have to be inquisitive and ask 
your name. Otherwise I sha’n’t know where to send 
the money.” 

“Oh, there’s no mystery about me. I’m an open 
book.” 

“You needn’t be horrid about it. I can’t help being 
mysterious.” 

“I didn’t mean that.” 

“It sounded as if you did. Well, who is my bene- 
factor ?” 

“My name is George Bevan. I am staying at the 
Carlton at present.” 

“I’ll remember.” 

The taxi moved slowly down the Haymarket. The 
girl laughed. 

“Yes?” said George. 

“I was only thinking of back there. You know, I 
haven’t thanked you nearly enough for all you did. 
You were wonderful!” 

“I’m very glad I was able to be of any help.” 

“What did happen? You must remember I couldn’t 
see a thing except your back, and I could only hear 
indistinctly.” 

“Well, it started by a man galloping up and insist- 


54 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


ing that you had got into the cab. He was a fellow 
with the appearance of a before-using advertisement 
of an anti fat medicine and the manners of ring-tailed 
chimpanzee.’’ 

The girl nodded. 

“Then it was Percy! I knew I wasn’t mistaken.” 

“Percy?” 

“That is his name.” 

“It would be ! I could have betted on it.” 

“What happened then?” 

“I reasoned with the man, but didn’t seem to soothe 
him, and finally he made a grab for the door handle, 
so I knocked off his hat, and while he was retrieving 
it was moved on and escaped.” 

The girl gave another silver peal of laughter. 

“Oh, what a shame I couldn’t see it! But how re- 
sourceful of you! How did you happen to think of 
it?” 

“It just came to me,” said George modestly. 

A serious look came into the girl’s face. The smile 
died out of her eyes. She shivered. 

“When I think how some men might have behaved 
in your place!” 

“Oh, no. Any man would have done just what I 
did. Surely, knocking off Percy’s hat was an act of 
simple courtesy which anyone would have performed 
automatically!” 

“You might have been some awful bounder! Or, 
what would have been almost worse, a slow-witted 
idiot who would have stopped to ask questions before 
doing anything! To think I should have had the luck 
to pick you out of all London !” 

“I’ve been looking on it as a piece of luck — ^but en- 
tirely from my viewpoint.” 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


55 


She put a small hand on his arm and spoke earnestly. 

‘'Mr. Sevan, you mustn’t think that, because I’ve 
been laughing a good deal and have seemed to treat 
all this as a joke, you haven’t saved me from real 
trouble. If you hadn’t been there and hadn’t acted 
with such presence of mind, it would have been ter- 
rible !” 

“But surely, if that fellow was annoying you you 
could have called a policeman?” 

“Oh, it wasn’t anything like that. It was much, 
much worse. But I mustn’t go on like this. It isn’t 
fair on you.” Her eyes lit up again with the old shin- 
ing smile. “I know you have no curiosity about me, 
but still there’s no knowing whether I might not arouse 
some if I went on piling up the mystery. And the 
silly part is that really there’s no mystery at all. It’s 
just that I can’t tell anyone about it.” 

“That very fact seems to me to constitute the mak- 
ings of a pretty fair mystery.” 

“Well, what I mean its. I’m not a princess in disguise 
trying to escape from anarchists, or anything like 
those things you read about in books. I’m just in a 
perfectly simple piece of trouble. You would be bored 
to death if I told you about it.” 

“Try me!” 

She shook her head. 

“No! Besides, here we are.” The cab had stopped 
at the hotel, and a commissionaire was already opening 
the door. “Now, if you haven’t repented of your rash 
offer and really are going to be so awfully kind as to 
let me have that money, would you mind rushing off 
and getting it, because I must hurry. I can just catch 
a good train, and it’s hours to the next.” 

“Will you wait here ? I’ll be back in a moment.” 


56 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


‘^Very well/’ 

The last George saw of her was another of those 
exhilarating smiles of hers. It was literally the last he 
saw of her for when he returned not more than two 
minutes later, the cab had gone, the girl had gone, and 
the world was empty. 

To him, gaping at this wholly unforeseen calamity, 
the commissionaire vouchsafed information. 

“The young lady took the cab on, sir.” 

“Took the cab on?” 

“Almost immediately after you had gone, sir, she 
got in again and told the man to drive to Waterloo.” 

George could make nothing of it. He stood there 
in silent perplexity, and might have continued to stand 
indefinitely, had not his mind been distracted by a dic- 
tatorial voice at his elbow. 

“You, sir ! Dammit !” 

A second taxicab had pulled up, and from it a stout, 
scarlet- faced young man had sprung. One glance told 
George all. The hunt was up once more. The blood- 
hound had picked up the trail. Percy was in again ! 

For the first time since had had become aware of 
her flight, George was thankful that the girl had dis- 
appeared. He perceived that he had too quickly elimi- 
nated Percy from the list of the Things That Matter. 
Engrossed with his own affairs, and having regarded 
their late skirmish as a decisive battle from which 
there would be no rallying, he had overlooked the pos- 
sibility of this annoying and unnecessary person fol- 
lowing them in another cab, a task which, in the con- 
gested, slow-moving traffic, must have been a per- 
fectly simple one. Well, here he was, his soul mani- 
festly all stirred up and his blood pressure at a far 
higher figure than his doctor would have approved of, 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


57 


and the matter would have to be opened all over again. 

^^Now then !” said the stout young man. 

George regarded him with a critical and unfriendly 
eye. He disliked this fatty degeneration excessively. 
Looking him up and down he could find no point about 
him that gave him the least pleasure, with the single 
exception of the state of his hat, in the side of which 
he was rejoiced to perceive there was a large and un- 
shapely dent. 

“You thought you had shaken me off ! You thought 
you’d given me the slip! Well, you’re wrong!” 

George eyed him coldly. 

“I know what’s the matter with you,” he said. 
‘^Someone’s been feeding you meat!” 

The young man bubbled with fury. His face turned 
a deeper scarlet. He gesticulated. 

“You blackguard! Where’s my sister?” 

At this extraordinary remark the world rocked 
about George dizzily. The words upset his entire diag- 
nosis of the situation. Until that moment he had 
looked upon this man as a Lothario, a pursuer of dam- 
sels. That the other could possibly have any right on 
his side had never occurred to him. He felt unmanned 
by the shock. It seemed to cut the ground from under 
his feet. 

“Your sister!” 

“You heard what I said! Where is she?” 

George was still endeavoring to adjust his scattered 
faculties. He felt foolish and apologetic. He had im- 
agined himself unassailably in the right, and it now 
appeared that he was in the wrong. 

For a moment he was about to become conciliatory. 
Then the recollection of the girl’s panic and her hints 
at some trouble which threatened her — presumably 


58 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


through the medium of this man, brother or no brother 
— checked him. He did not know what it was all 
about, but the one thing that did stand out clearly in 
the welter of confused happenings was the girl’s need 
for his assistance. Whatever might be the rights of 
the case, he was her accomplice and must behave as 
such. 

‘T don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. 

The young man shook a larged gloved fist in his 
face. 

'"You blackguard!” 

A rich, deep, soft, soothing voice slid into the heated 
scene. 

‘What’s all this?” 

A vast policeman had materialized from nowhere. 
He stood beside them, a living statue of vigilant au- 
thority. One thumb rested easily in his broad belt. 
The fingers of the other hand caressed lightly a mus- 
tache that had caused more heartburnings among the 
gentler sex than any other two mustaches in the C-di- 
vision. The eyes above the mustache were stem and 
questioning. 

“What’s all this?” 

George liked policemen. He knew the way to treat 
them. His voice, when he replied, had precisely the 
correct note of respectful deference which the force 
likes to hear. 

“I really couldn’t say, officer,” he said, with just that 
air of having in a time of trouble found a kind elder 
brother to help him out of his difficulties which made 
the constable his ally on the spot. “I was standing 
here, when this man suddenly made his extraordinary 
attack on me. I wish you would ask him to go away.” 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


59 


The policeman tapped the stout young man on the 
shoulder. 

“This won’t do, you know!” he said austerely. 
“This sort o’ thing won’t do ’ere, you know 1” 

“Take your hands off me 1” snorted Percy. 

A frown appeared on the Olympian brow. Jove 
reached for his thunderbolts. 

“’Ullo! ’Ullo! ’Ullo!” he said in a shocked voice, 
as of a god defied by a mortal. “’Ullo! ’Ullo! ’Ul- 
lo!” 

His fingers fell on Percy’s shoulder again, but this 
time not in a mere warning tap. They rested where 
they fell, in an iron clutch. 

“It won’t do, you know!” he said. “This sort o’ 
thing won’t do!” 

Madness came upon the stout young man. Com- 
mon prudence and the lessons of a carefully taught 
youth fell from him like a garment. With an inco- 
herent howl he wriggled round and punched the police- 
man smartly in the stomach. 

“Ho !” quote the outraged officer, suddenly becom- 
ing human. His left hand removed itself from the 
belt, and he got a business-like grip on his adversary’s 
collar. “Well, you come along with me!” 

It was amazing. The thing had happened in such 
an incredibly brief space of time. One moment, it 
seemed to George, he was the center of a nasty row in 
one of the most public spots in London; the next, the 
focus had shifted; he had ceased to matter, and the en- 
tire attention of the metropolis was focused on his late 
assailant, as, urged by the arm of the law, he made 
that journey to Vine Street Police Station which so 
many a better man than he had trod. 

George watched the pair as they moved up the Hay- 


60 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


market, followed by a growing and increasingly ab- 
sorbed crowd ; then he turned into the hotel. 

"‘This,’" he said to himself, ‘‘is the middle of a per- 
fect day! And I thought London dull!’^ 


V 


EORGE awoke next morning with a misty sense 
that somehow the world had changed. As 
the last remnants of sleep left him he was aware of a 
vague excitement. Then he sat up in bed with a jerk. 
He had remembered that he was in love. 

There was no doubt about it. A curious happiness 
pervaded his entire being. He felt young and active. 
Everything was emphatically for the best in this best 
of all possible worlds. The sun was shining. Even 
the sound of someone in the street below whistling one 
of his old compositions, of which he had heartily sick- 
ened twelve months before, was pleasant to his ears; 
and this in spite of the fact that the unseen whistler 
only touched the key in odd spots and had a poor mem- 
ory for tunes. George sprang lightly out of bed and 
turned on the cold tap in the bathroom. While he 
lathered his face for its morning shave he beamed at 
himself in the mirror. 

It had come at last. The Real Thing. 

George had never been in love before — not really 
in love. True, from the age of fifteen, he had been in 
varying degrees of intensity attracted sentimentally 
by the opposite sex. Indeed, at that period of life of 
which Mr. Booth Tarkington has written so searching- 
ly — the age of seventeen — he had been in love with 
practically every female he met and with dozens whom 
he had only seen in the distance; but ripening years 
had mellowed his taste and robbed him of that fine 

6i 


62 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


romantic catholicity. During the last five years women 
had left him more or less cold. It was the nature of 
his profession that had largely brought about this cool- 
ing of the emotions. To a man who, like George, has 
worked year in and year out at the composition of mu- 
sical comedies, woman comes to lose many of those 
attractive qualities which ensnare the ordinary male. 
To George, of late years, it had begun to seem that the 
salient feature of woman as a sex was her disposition 
to kick. For five years he had been wandering in a 
world of women, many of them beautiful, all of them 
superficially attractive, who had left no other impress 
on his memory except the vigor and frequeney with 
which they had kicked. Some had kicked about their 
musical numbers, some about their love scenes, some 
had grumbled about their exit lines, others about the 
lines of their second-act frocks. They had kicked in 
a myriad differing ways — wrathfully, sweetly, nois- 
ily, softly, smilingly, tearfully, pathetically and pat- 
ronizingly ; but they had all kicked, with the result that 
woman had now become to George not so much a 
flaming inspiration or a tender goddess as something 
to be dodged — tactfully, if possible, but if not possi- 
ble, by open flight. For years he had dreaded to be left 
alone with a woman, and had developed a habit of 
gliding swiftly away when he saw one bearing down 
on him. 

The psychological effect of such a state of things is 
not difficult to realize. Take a man of naturally quix- 
otic temperament, a man of chivalrous instincts and a 
feeling for romance, and cut him off for five years 
from the exercise of those qualities; and you get an 
accumulated store of foolishness only comparable to 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


63 


an escape of gas in a sealed room or a cellar ful of 
dynamite. A flicker of a match, and there is an ex- 
plosion. 

This girl’s tempestuous irruption into his life had 
supplied the flame for George. Her bright eyes, look- 
ing into his, had touched off the spiritual trinitrotoluol 
which he had been storing up for so long. Up in the 
air in a million pieces had gone the prudence and self- 
restraint of a lifetime. And here he was, as desper- 
ately in love as any troubadour of the Middle Ages. 

It was not till he had finished shaving and was test- 
ing the temperature of his bath with a shrinking toe 
that the realization came over him in a wave that, 
though he might be in love, the fairway of love was 
dotted with more bunkers than any golf coursfe he had 
ever played on in his life. In the first place, he did 
not know the girl’s name. In the second place, it 
seemed practically impossible that he would ever see 
her again. Even in the midst of his optimism George 
could not deny that these facts might reasonably be 
considered in the nature of obstacles. He went back 
into his bedroom and sat on the bed. This thing 
wanted thinking over. 

He was not depressed, only a little thoughtful. His 
faith in his luck sustained him. He was, he realized, 
in the position of a man who has made a supreme drive 
from the tee and finds his ball near the green but in 
a cuppy lie. He had gained much; it now remained 
for him to push his success to the happy conclusion. 
The driver of luck must be replaced by the spoon — 
or possibly the niblick — of ingenuity. To fail now, 
to allow this girl to pass out of his life merely because 
he did not know she was or where she was, would 
stamp him a feeble adventurer. A fellow could not 


64 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


expect luck to do everything for him. He must sup- 
plement its assistance with his own efforts. 

What had he to go on? Well, nothing much, if it 
came to that, except the knowledge that she lived some 
two hours by train out of London and that her jour- 
ney started from Waterloo Station. What would 
Sherlock Holmes have done? Concentrated thought 
supplied no answer to the question ; and it was at this 
point that the cheery optimism with which he had 
begun the day left George and gave place to a gray 
gloom. A dreadful phrase, haunting in its pathos, 
crept into his mind. Ships that pass in the night! 
It might easily turn out that way. Indeed, thinking 
over the affair in all its aspects as he dried himself 
after his tub, George could not see how it could 
possibly turn out any other way. 

He dressed moodily, and left the room to go down 
to breakfast. Breakfast would at least alleviate this 
smking feeling which was unmanning him. And he 
. .uld think more briskly after a cup or two of coffee. 

He opened the door. On the mat outside lay a 
letter. The handwriting was feminine. It was also 
in pencil and strange to him. He opened the envelope. 

“Dear Mr. Bevan/' it began. 

With a sudden leap of the heart he looked at the 
signature. 

The letter was signed “The Girl in the Cab.” 

''Dear Mr. Sevan: I hope you won’t think me very 
rude, running off without waiting to say good-by. I 
had to. I saw Percy driving up in a cab, and knew 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


65 , 

that he must have followed us. He did not see me, so 
I got away all right. I managed splendidly about the 
money, for I remembered that I was wearing a nice 
brooch, and stopped on the way to the station to 
pawn it. 

“Thank you ever so much again for all your wonder- 
ful kindness. 

Yours, 

“The Girl in the Cab.''^ 

George read the note twice on the way down to the 
breakfast room and three times more during the meal ; 
then, having committed its contents to memory down 
to the last comma, he gave himself up to glowing 
thoughts. 

What a girl ! He had never in his life before met a 
woman who could write a letter without a postscript, 
and this was but the smallest of her unusual gifts. The 
resource of her, to think of pawning that brooch ! The 
sweetness of her to bother to send him a note ! More 
than ever before was he convinced that he had met 
his ideal, and more than ever before was he determined 
that a triviality like being unaware of her name and 
address should not keep him from her. It was not as 
if he had no clew to go upon. He knew that she lived 
two hours from London and started home from 
Waterloo. It narrowed the thing down absurdly. 
There were only about three counties in which she 
could possibly live; and a man must be a poor fellow 
who is incapable of searching through a few small 
counties for the girl he loves. Especially a man with 
luck like his. 

Luck is a goddess not to be coerced and forcibly 
wooed by those who seek her favors. From such 


66 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


masterful spirits she turns away. But it happens 
sometimes that, if we put our hand in hers with the 
humble trust of a little child, she will have pity on us 
and not fail us in our hour of need. On George, hope- 
fully waiting for something to turn up, she smiled 
almost immediately. 

It was George’s practice, when he lunched alone, to 
relieve the tedium of the meal with the assistance of 
reading matter in the shape of one or more of the 
evening papers. To-day, sitting down to a solitary 
repast at the Piccadilly Grillroom, he had brought with 
him an early edition of the Evening News. And one 
of the first items which met his eye was the following, 
embodied in a column on one of the inner pages de- 
voted to humorous comments in prose and verse on 
the happenings of the day. This particular happening 
the writer had apparently considered worthy of being 
dignified by rime. It was headed : 

The Peer and the Policeman 

‘'Outside the Carlton, ’tis averred, these stirring 
happenings occurred. The hour ’tis said — and no one 
doubts — was half-past two, or thereabouts. The day 
was fair, the sky was blue, and everything was peace- 
ful, too, when suddenly a well-dressed gent engaged in 
heated argument and roundly to abuse began another 
well-dressed gentleman. His suede-gloved fist he 
raised on high to dot the other in the eye. Who knows 
what horrors might have been, had there not come 
upon the scene old London city’s favorite son, Police- 
man C-231. ‘What means this conduct? Prithee stop!’ 
exclaimed that admirable slop. With which he placed 
a warning hand upon the brawler’s collar band. We 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


67 


simply hate to tell the rest. No subject here for 
flippant jest. The mere remembrance of the tale has 
made our ink turn deadly pale. Let us be brief. 
Some demon sent stark madness on the well-dressed 
gent. He gave the constable a punch just where the 
latter kept his lunch. The constable said : ‘Well ! Well ! 
Well!’ and marched him to a dungeon cell. At Vine 
Street Station out it came — Lord Belpher was the 
culprit’s name. But British justice is severe alike on 
pauper and on peer; with even hand she holds the 
scale; a thumping fine, in lieu of jail, induced Lord B. 
to feel remorse and learn he mustn’t punch the Force.” 

George’s mutton chop congealed on the plate, un- 
touched. The French-fried potatoes cooled off, un- 
noticed. This was no time for food. Rightly indeed 
had he relied upon his luck. It had stood by him 
nobly. With this clew all was over except getting t6 
the nearest free library and consulting Burke’s Peer- 
age. He paid his check and left the restaurant. 

Ten minutes later he was drinking in the pregnant 
information that Belpher was the family name of the 
Earl of Marshmoreton, and that the present earl had 
one son, Percy Wilbraham Marsh, educ Eton and 
Christ Church, Oxford, and, what the book with its 
customary curtness called one d , — Patricia Maud. ' 
The family seat, said Burke, was Belpher Castle, 
Belpher, Hants. 

Some hours later, seated in a first-class compart- 
ment of a train that moved slowly out of Waterloo 
Statior, George watched London vanish behind him. 
In the pocket closest to his throbbing heart was a 
one-way ticket to Belpher. 


VI 


T ABOUT the time that George Bevan’s train 



was leaving Waterloo, a gray racing car drew 
up with a grinding of brakes and a sputter of gravel 
in front of the main entrance of Belpher Castle. The 
slim and elegant young man at the wheel removed his 
goggles, pulled out a watch, and addressed the stout 
young man at his side. 

“Two hours and eighteen minutes from Hyde Park 
Corner, Boots. Not so dusty, what?’’ 

His companion made no reply. He appeared to be 
plunged in thought. He, too, removed his goggles, 
revealing a florid and gloomy face, equipped, in ad- 
dition to the usual features, with a small mustache and 
an extra chin. He scowled forbiddingly at the charm- 
ing scene which the goggles had hidden from him. 

Before him, a symmetrical mass of graystone and 
green ivy, Belpher Castle towered against a light-blue 
sky. On either side rolling park land spread as far 
as the eye could see, carpeted here and there with vio- 
lets, dotted with great oaks and ashes and Spanish 
chestnuts, orderly, peaceful and English. Nearer, on 
his left, were rose gardens, in the center of which, 
tilted at a sharp angle, appeared the seat of a pair of 
corduroy trousers, whose wearer seemed to be en- 
gaged in hunting for snails. Thrushes sang in the 
green shrubberies; rooks cawed in the elms. Some- 
where in the distance sounded the tinkle of sheep bells 
and the lowing of cows. It was, in fact, a scene which, 


68 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


69 


lit by the evening sun of a perfect spring day and 
fanned by a gentle westerly wind, should have brought 
balm and soothing meditations to one who was the 
sole heir to all this paradise. 

But Percy, Lord Belpher, remained uncomforted 
by the notable cooperation of man and Nature, and 
drew no solace from the reflection that all these pleas- 
ant things would one day be his own. His mind was 
occupied at the moment, to the exclusion of all other 
thoughts, by the recollection ot that painful scene in 
Bow Street Police Court. The magistrate’s remarks, 
which had been tactless and unsympathetic, still echoed 
in his ears. And that infernal night in Vine Street 
Police Station ... the darkness ... the hard bed 
. . . the discordant vocalizing of the drunk and dis- 
orderly in the next cell! Time might soften these 
memories, might lessen the sharp agony of them; but 
nothing could remove them altogether. 

Percy had been shaken to the core of his being. 
Physically, he was still stiff and sore from the plank 
bed. Mentally, he was a volcano. He had been 
marched up the Haymarket in the full sight of all 
London by a bounder of a policeman. He had been 
talked to like an erring child by a magistrate whom 
nothing could convince that he had not been under 
the influence of alcohol at the moment of his arrest. 
The man had said things about his liver, kindly be- 
warned-in-time-and-pull-up-before-it-is-too-late things, 
which would have seemed to Percy indecently frank if 
spoken by his medical adviser in the privacy of the sick 
chamber. It is, perhaps, not to be wondered at that 
Belpher Castle, for all its beauty of scenery and 
architecture, should have left Lord Belpher a little 
cold. He was seething with a fury which the con- 


70 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


versation of Reggie Byng had done nothing to allay 
in the course of the journey from London. Reggie was 
the last person he would willingly have chosen as a 
companion in his hour of darkness. Reggie was not 
soothing. He would insist on addressing him by his 
old Eton nickname of Boots, which Percy detested. 
And all the way down he had been breaking out at 
intervals into ribald comments on the recent unfortu- 
nate occurrence which were very hard to hear. 

He resumed this vein as they alighted and rang the 
bell. 

^This,” said Reggie, ‘‘is rather like a bit out of a 
melodrama. Convict son totters up the steps of the 
old home and punches the bell. What awaits him 
beyond? Forgiveness? Or the raspberry ? True, the 
white-haired butler, who knew him as a child, will sob 
on his neck, but what of the old dad? How will dad 
take the blot on the family escutcheon ?’’ 

Lord Belpher’s scowl deepened. 

“It’s not a joking matter,” he said coldly. 

“Great heavens. Pm not joking! How could I have 
the heart to joke at a moment like this, when the friend 
of my youth has suddenly become a social leper ” 

“I wish to goodness you would stop.” 

“Do you think it is any .pleasure to me to be seen 
about with a man who is now known in criminal circles 
as Percy, the Piccadilly Policeman Puncher? I keep 
a brave face before the world, but inwardly I burn 
with shame and agony and what not.” 

The great door of the castle swung open, revealing 
Keggs, the butler. He was a man of reverend years, 
portly and dignified, with a respectfully benevolent 
face that beamed gravely on the young master and Mr. 
Byng, as if their coming had filled his cup of pleasure. 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


71 


His light, slightly protruding eyes expressed reveren- 
tial good will. He gave just that touch of cosy hu- 
manity to the scene which the hall with its half lights 
and massive furniture needed to make it perfect to the 
returned wanderer. He seemed to be intimating that 
this was a moment to which he had looked forward 
long, and that from now on quiet happiness would 
reign supreme. It is distressing to have to reveal the 
jarring fact that, in his hours of privacy when oil 
duty, this apparently ideal servitor was so far from 
being a respecter of persons that he was accustomed to 
speak of Lord Belpher as ‘Tercy,’’ and even as “His 
Nibs.’^ It was, indeed, an open secret among the 
upper servants at the castle, and a fact hinted at with 
awe among the lower, that Keggs was at heart a 
socialist. 

“Good evening, your lordship. Good evening, sir.’’ 

Lord Belpher acknowledged the salutation with a 
grunt, but Reggie was more affable. 

“How are you, Keggs? Now’s your time, if you’re 
going to do it.” He stepped a little to one side and 
indicated Lord Belpher’s crimson neck with an inviting 
gesture. 

“I beg your pardon, sir?” 

“Ah. You’d rather wait till you can do it a little 
more privately. Perhaps you’re right.” 

The butler smiled indulgently. He did not under- 
stand what Reggie was talking about, but that did not 
worry him. He had long since come to the conclusion 
that Reggie was slightly mad, a theory supported by 
the latter’s valet, who was of the same opinion. Keggs 
did not dislike Reggie, but intellectually he considered 
him negligible. 


73 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


‘'Send something to drink into the library, Keggs,^^ 
said Lord Belpher. 

“Very good, your lordship/’ 

“A topping idea,” said Reggie. “I’ll just take the 
old car round to the garage, and then Til be with 
you.” 

He climbed to the steering wheel and started the 
engine. Lord Belpher proceeded to the library, while 
Keggs melted away through the green-baize door at 
the end of the hall which divided the servants’ quar- 
ters from the rest of the house. 

Reggie had hardly driven a dozen yards when he 
perceived his stepmother and Lord Marshmoreton 
coming toward him from the direction of the rose 
garden. He drew up to greet them. 

“Hullo, mater ! What ho, uncle ! Back again at the 
old homestead, what?” 

Beneath Lady Caroline’s aristocratic front agitation 
seemed to lurk. 

“Reggie, where is Percy?” 

“Old Boots? I think he’s gone to the library. I just 
decanted him out of the car.” 

Lady Caroline turned to her brother. 

“Let us go to the library, John.” 

“All right. All right. All right,” said Lord Marsh- 
moreton irritably. Something appeared to have ruffled 
his calm. 

Reggie drove on. As he was strolling back after 
putting the car away he met Maud. 

“Hullo, Maud, dear old thing.” 

“Why, hullo, Reggie! I was expecting you back 
last night.” 

“Couldn’t get back last night. Had to stick in town 
and rally round old Boots. Couldn’t desert the old boy 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


73 


in his hour of trial.” Reggie chuckled amusedly. 
“ 'Hour of trial' is rather good, what? What I mean 
to say is, that’s just what it was, don’t you know.” 

"Why, what happened to Percy?” 

"Do you mean to say you haven’t heard ? Of course 
not. It wouldn’t have been in the morning papers. 
Why, Percy punched a policeman.” 

"Percy did what?” 

"Slugged a slop. Most dramatic thing. Sloshed 
him in the midriff. Absolutely. The cross marks the 
spot where the tragedy occurred.” 

Maud caught her breath. Somehow, though she 
could not trace the connection, she felt that this extra- 
ordinary happening must be linked up with her 
escapade. Then her sense of humor got the better of 
apprehension. Her eyes twinkled delightedly. 

"You don’t mean to say Percy did that?” 

"Absolutely. The human tiger and what not. 
Menace to society and all that sort of thing. No hold- 
ing him. For some unexplained reason the generous 
blood of the Belphers boiled over, and then — zing! 
They jerked him off to Vine Street. Like the poem, 
don’t you know. 'And poor old Percy walked between 
with gyves upon his wrists.’ And this morning, bright 
and early, the beak parted him from ten quid. You 
know, Maud, old thing, our duty stares us plainly in 
the eyeball. We’ve got to train old Boots down to a 
reasonable weight and spring him on the National 
Sporting Club. We’ve been letting a champion middle- 
weight blush unseen under our very roof-tree.” 

Maud hesitated a moment. 

"I suppose you don’t know,” she asked carelessly, 
"why he did it? I mean, did he tell you anything?” 

"Couldn’t get a word out of him. Oysters garrulous 


74 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


and tombs chatty in comparison. Absolutely. All I 
know is that he popped one into the officer’s waist- 
band. What led up to it is more than I can tell you. 
How would it be to stagger to the library and join 
the post mortem ?” 

‘‘The post mortem ?” 

“Well, I met the mater and his lordship on their way 
to the library, and it looked to me very much as if 
the mater must have got hold of an evening paper on 
her journey from town? When did she arrive?” 

“Only a short time ago.” 

“Then that’s what’s happened. She would have 
bought an evening paper to read in the train. By 
Jove, I wonder if she got hold of the one that had 
the poem about it. One chappie was so carried away 
by the beauty of the episode that he treated it in verse. 
I think we ought to look in and see what’s happen- 
mg. 

Maud hesitated again. But she was a girl of spirit. 
And she had an intuition that her best defense would 
be attack. Bluff was what was needed, and wide-eyed, 
innocent wonder. After all, Percy couldn’t be cer- 
tain he had seen her in Piccadilly. 

“All right.” 

“By the way, dear old girl,” inquired Reggie, “did 
your little business come out satisfactorily? I forgot 
to ask.” 

“Not very. But it was awfully sweet of you to take 
me into town.” 

“How would it be,” said Reggie nervously, “not to 
dwell too much on that part of it? What I mean to 
say is, for heaven’s sake don’t let the mater know I 
rallied round.” 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


75 


“Don’t worry,” said Maud with a laugh. “Fm not 
going to talk about the thing at all.” 

Lord Belpher, meanwhile, in the library, had begun 
with the aid of a whisky and soda to feel a little bet- 
ter. There was something about the library with its 
somber half tones that soothed his bruised spirit. The 
room held something of the peace of a deserted city. 
The world, with its violent adventures and tall police- 
men, did not enter here. There was balm in those rows 
and rows of books which nobody ever read, those vast 
writing tables at which nobody ever wrote. From 
the broad mantelpiece the bust of some unnamed 
ancient looked down almost sympathetically. Some- 
thing remotely resembling peace had begun to steal 
into Percy’s soul, when it was expelled by the abrupt 
opening of the door and the entry of Lady Caroline 
Byng and his father. One glance at the face of the 
former was enough to tell Lord Belpher that she knew 
all. He rose defensively. 

“Let me explain.” 

Lady Caroline quivered with repressed emotion. 
This masterly woman had not lost control of herself, 
but her aristocratic calm had seldom been so severely 
tested. As Reggie had surmised, she had read the 
report of the proceedings in the evening paper in the 
train, and her world had been reeling ever since. 
Caesar, stabbed by Brutus, could scarcely have ex- 
perienced a greater shock. The other members of her 
family had disappointed her often. She had become 
inured to the spectacle of her brother working in the 
garden in corduroy trousers and in other ways be- 
having in a manner beneath the dignity of an Earl of 
Marshmoreton. She had resigned herself to the in- 
nate flaw in the character of Maud which had allowed 


76 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


her to fall in love with a nobody whom she had met 
without an introduction. Even Reggie had exhibited 
at times democratic traits of which she thoroughly dis- 
approved. But of her nephew Percy she had always 
been sure. He was solid rock. He, at least, she had 
always felt, would never do anything to injure the 
family prestige. And now, so to speak, “Lo, Ben 
Adhem’s name led all the rest."’ In other words, Percy 
was the worst of the lot. 

Whatever indiscretions the rest had committed, at 
least they had never got the family name into the comic 
columns of the evening papers. Lord Marshmoreton 
might wear corduroy trousers and refuse to entertain 
the county at garden parties, and go to bed with a 
book when it was his duty to act the host at a formal 
ball ; Maud might give her heart to an impossible per- 
son whom nobody had ever heard of; and Reggie 
might be seen at fashionable restaurants with pugilists ; 
but at any rate evening-paper poets had never written 
facetious verses about their exploits. This crowning 
degradation had been reserved for the hitherto blame- 
less Percy, who, of all the young men of Lady Caro- 
line's acquaintance, had till now appeared to have the 
most scrupulous sense of his position, the most rigid 
regard for the dignity of his great name. Yes, here 
he was, if the carefully considered reports in the daily 
press were to be believed, spending his time in the very 
springtide of his life running about London like a 
frenzied Hottentot, brutally assaulting the police. Lady 
Caroline felt as a bishop might feel if he suddenly 
discovered that some favorite curate had gone over to 
the worship of Mumbo Jumbo. 

'‘Explain?” she cried. “How can you explain? 
You, my nephew, the heir to the title, behaving like 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


77 


a common rowdy in the streets of London . . . your 
name in the papers 

‘Tf you knew the circumstances ” 

‘'The circumstances? They are in the evening 
paper. They are in print.’’ 

‘Tn verse,” added Lord Marshmoreton. He chuckled 
amiably at the recollection. He was an easily amused 
man. “You ought to read it, my boy. It was capi- 
tal.” 

“John!” 

“But deplorable, of course,” added Lord Marsh- 
moreton hastily, “very deplorable.” He endeavored 
to regain his sister’s esteem by a show of righteous 
indignation. “What do you mean by it, dammit? 
You’re my only son. I have watched you grow from 
child to boy, from boy to man, with tender solicitude. 
I have wanted to be proud of you. And all the time, 
dash it, you are prowling about London like a lion, 
seeking whom you may devour, terrorizing the 
metropolis, putting harmless policemen in fear of their 
lives ” 

“Will you listen to me for a moment?” shouted 
Percy. He began to speak rapidly, as one conscious 
of the necessity of saying his say while the saying 
was good. “The facts are these : I was walking along 
Piccadilly on my way to lunch at the club, when, near 
Burlington Arcade, I was amazed to see Maud.” 

Lady Caroline uttered an exclamation. 

“Maud ? But Maud was here.” 

“I can’t understand it,” went on Lord M’arshmore- 
ton, pursuing his remarks. Righteous indignation had, 
he felt, gone well. It might be judicious to continue 
in that vein, though privately he held the opinion that 
nothing in Percy’s life so became him as this assault 


78 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


on the force. Lord Marshmoreton, who in his time 
had committed all the follies of youth, had come to 
look on his blameless son as scarcely human. 'Tt’s 
not as if you were wild. You’ve never got into any 
scrapes at Oxford. You’ve spent your time collecting 
old china and prayer rugs. You wear flannel next 
your skin ” 

“Will you please be quiet,” said Lady Caroline im- 
patiently. “Go on, Percy.” 

“Oh, very well,” said Lord Marshmoreton. “I only 
spoke. I merely made a remark.” 

“You say you saw Maud in Piccadilly, Percy?” 

“Precisely. I was on the point of putting it down 
to an extraordinary resemblance, when suddenly she 
got into a cab. Then I knew.” 

Lord Marshmoreton could not permit this to pass 
in silence. He was a fair-minded man. 

“Why shouldn’t the girl have got into a cab ? Why 
must a girl walking along Piccadilly be my daughter 
Maud just because she got into a cab. London,” he 
proceeded, warmng to the argument and thrilled by 
the clearness and coherence of his reasoning, “is full 
of girls who take cabs.” 

“She didn’t take a cab.” 

“You just said she did,” said Lord Marshmoreton 
cleverly. 

“I said she got into a cab. There was somebody 
else already in the cab — a man. Aunt Caroline, it was 
the man.” 

“Good gracious!” ejaculated Lady Caroline, falling 
into a chair as if she had been hamstrung. 

“I am absolutely convinced of it,” proceeded Lord 
Belpher solemnly. “His behavior was enough to con- 
firm my suspicions. The cab had stopped in a block 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


81 


bubbling gayety and insouciance, a charming picture 
of young English girlhood that nearly made her 
brother foam at the mouth. 

“Father, dear,” she said, attaching herself affection- 
ately to his buttonhole, “I went round the links in 
eighty-three this morning. I did the long hole in four. 
One under par, a thing IVe never done before in my 
life.” 

“Bless my soul!” said Lord Marshmoreton weakly, 
as, with an apprehensive eye on his sister, he patted 
his daughter’s shoulder. 

“First, I sent a screecher of a drive right down the 
middle of the fairway. Then I took my brassey and 
put the ball just on the edge of the green — a hundred 
and eighty yards if it was an inch. My approach 
putt ” 

Lady Caroline, who was no devotee of the royal 
and ancient game, interrupted the recital. 

“Never mind what you did this morning. What 
did you do yesterday afternoon?” 

“Yes,” said Lord Belpher. “Where were you yester- 
day afternoon ?” 

Maud’s gaze was the gaze of a young child who 
has never even attempted to put anything over in all 
its little life. 

“Whatever do you mean ?” 

“What were you doing in Piccadilly yesterday after- 
noon?” said Lady Caroline. 

“Piccadilly? The place where Percy fights police- 
men? I don’t understand.” 

Lady Caroline was no sportsman. She put one of 
those direct questions, capable of being answered only 
by Yes or No, which ought not to be allowed in con- 


82 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


troversy. They are the verbal equivalent of shooting 
a sitting bird. 

“Did you or did you not go to London yesterday, 

Maudr 

The monstrous unfairness of this method of attack 
pained Maud. From childhood up she had held the 
customary feminine views upon the lie direct. As long 
as it was a question of suppression of the true or 
suggestion of the false, she had no scruples. But she 
had a distaste for deliberate falsehood. Faced now 
with a choice between two evils, she chose the one 
which would at least leave her her self-respect. 

“Yes, I did.^’ 

Lady Caroline looked at Lord Belpher. Lord 
Belpher looked at Lady Caroline. 

“You went to meet that American of yours?’’ 

“Yes.” 

Reggie Byng slid softly from the room. He felt 
that he would be happier elsewhere. He had been 
an acutely embarrassed spectator of this distressing 
scene, and had been passing the time by shuffling his 
feet, playing with his coat buttons and perspiring. 

“Don’t go, Reggie,” said Lord Belpher. 

“Well, what I mean to say is . . . family row and 
what not ... if you see what I mean . . . I’ve one 
or two things I ought to do.” 

He vanished. Lord Belpher frowned a somber 
frown. 

“Then it was that man who knocked my hat off.” 

“What do you mean ?” said Lady Caroline. 
“Knocked your hat off ? You never told me he knocked 
your hat off.” 

“It was when I was asking him to let me look inside 
the cab. I had grasped the handle of the door when 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


83 


he suddenly struck my hat, causing it to fly off. And 
while I was picking it up he drove away/’ 

‘‘C’k,” exploded Lord Marshmoreton. “C’k, c’k, 
c’k.” He twisted his face by a supreme exertion of 
will power into a mask of indignation. “You ought 
to have had the scoundrel arrested,” he said 
vehemently. 

“The man who knocked your hat off, Percy,” said 
Maud, “was not — ^he was a different man altogether, 
a stranger.” 

“As if you would be in a cab with a stranger,” said 
Lady Caroline caustically. “There are limits, I hope, 
to even your indiscretions.” 

Lord Marshmoreton cleared his throat. He was 
sorry for Maud, whom he loved. 

“Now, looking at the matter broadly ” 

“Be quiet,” said Lady Caroline. 

Lord Marshmoreton subsided. 

“I wanted to avoid you,” said Maud, “so I jumped 
into the first cab I saw.” 

“I don’t believe it,” said Percy. 

“It’s the truth.” 

“You are simply trying to put us off the scent.” 

Lady Caroline turned to Maud. Her manner was 
plaintive. She looked like a martyr at the stake, who 
deprecatingly lodges a timid complaint, fearful the 
while lest she may be hurting the feelings of her 
persecutors by appearing even for a moment out of 
sympathy with their activities. 

“My dear child, why will you not be reasonable in 
this matter ? Why will you not let yourself be guided 
by those who are older and wiser than you ?” 

“Quite,” said Lord Belpher. 

“The whole thing is too absurd.” 


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'‘Quite/’ said Lord Belpher. 

Lady Caroline turned on him irritably. 

"Please do not interrupt, Percy. Now you’ve made 
me forget what I was going to say.” 

"To my mind,” said Lord Marshmoreton, coming 
to the surface once more, "the proper attitude to adopt 
on occasions like the present ” 

"Please !” said Lady Caroline. 

Lord Marshmoreton stopped, and resumed his silent 
communion with the stuffed bird. 

"You can’t stop yourself being in love, Aunt Caro- 
line,” said Maud. 

"You can be stopped, if you’ve somebody with a 
level head looking after you.” 

Lord Marshmoreton tore himself away from the 
bird. 

"Why, when I was at Oxford in the year ’87,” he 
said chattily, "I fancied myself in love with the female 
assistant at a tobacconist shop. Desperately in love, 
dammit ! Wanted to marry her. I recollect my poor 
father took me away from Oxford and kept me here 
at Belpher under lock and key. Lock and key, dammit ! 
I was deucedly upset at the time, I remember.” His 
mind wandered off into the glorious past. "I wonder 
what that girl’s name was. Odd one can’t remember 
names. She had chestnut hair and a mole on the side 
of her chin. I used to kiss it, I recollect ” 

Lady Caroline, usually such an advocate of her 
brother’s researches into the family history, cut the 
reminiscences short. 

"Never mind that now.” 

"I don’t. I got over it. That’s the moral.” 

"Well,” said Lady Caroline, "at any rate poor 
father acted with great good sense on that occasion. 


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85 


There seems nothing to do but to treat Maud in just 
the same way. You shall not stir a step from the 
castle till you have got over this dreadful infatuation. 
You will be watched.’^ 

‘T shall watch you,” said Lord Belpher solemnly. 
‘T shall watch your every movement” 

A dreamy look came into Maud’s brown eyes. 

‘'Stone walls do not a prison make nor iron bars 
a. cage,” she said softly. 

“That wasn’t your experience, Percy, my boy,” 
said Lord Marshmoreton. 

“They make a very good imitation,” said Lady 
Caroline coldly, ignoring the interruption. 

Maud faced her defiantly. She looked like a princess 
in captivity, facing her jailers. 

“I don’t care. I love him, and I always shall love 
him and nothing is ever going to stop me loving him 
— because I love him,” she concluded a little lamely. 

“Nonsense,” said Lady Caroline. “In a year from 
now you will have forgotten his name. Don’t you 
agree with me, Percy?” 

“Quite,” said Lord Belpher. 

“I shan’t.” 

“Deuced hard things to remember, names,” said 
Lord Marshmoreton. “If I’ve tried once to remember 
that tobacconist girl’s name, I’ve tried a hundred times. 
I have an idea it began with an L. Muriel or Hilda 
or something.” 

“Within a year,” said Lady Caroline, “you will be 
wondering how you ever came to be so foolish. Don’t 
you think so, Percy?” 

“Quite,” said Lord Belpher. 

Lord Marshmoreton turned on him irritably. 

“Good God, boy, can’t you answer a simple question 


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with a plain affirmative ? What do you mean — quite ? 
If somebody came to me and pointed you out and said 
‘Is that your son?’ do you suppose I should say ‘Quite?’ 
I wish the devil you didn’t collect prayer rugs. It’s 
sapped your brain.” 

“They say prison life often weakens the intellect, 
father,” said Maud. She moved toward the door and 
turned the handle. Albert, the page boy, who had 
been courting earache by listening at the keyhole, 
straightened his small body and scuttled away. “Well, 
is that all. Aunt Caroline ? May I go now ?” 

“Certainly. I have said all I wished to say.” 

“Very well. I’m sorry to disobey you but I can’t 
help it.” 

“You’ll find you can help it after you’ve been cooped 
up here for a few more months,” said Percy. 

A gentle smile played over Maud’s face. 

“Love laughs at locksmiths,” she murmured softly, 
and passed from the room. 

“What did she say?” asked Lord Marshmoreton, 
interested. “Something about somebody laughing at 
a locksmith? I don’t understand. Why should any- 
one laugh at locksmiths? Most respectable men. Had 
one up here only the day before yesterday, forcing 
open the drawer of my desk. Watched him do it. 
Most interesting. He smelt rather strongly of a 
dashed bad brand of tobacco. Fellow must have a 
throat of leather to be able to smoke the stuff. But 
he didn’t strike me as an object of derision. From first 
to last, I was never tempted to laugh once.” 

Lord Belpher wandered moodily to the window and 
looked out into the gathering darkness. 

“And this has to happen,” he said bitterly, “on the 
eve of my twenty-first birthday.” 


VII 


I ^ HE first requisite of an invading army is a base. 

George, having entered Belpher Village and thus 
accomplished the first stage in his forward movement 
on the castle, selected as his base the Marshmoreton 
Arms. Selected is perhaps hardly the right word, as 
it implies choice, and in George’s case there was no 
choice. There are two inns at Belpher, but the Marsh- 
moreton Arms is the only one that offers accommoda- 
tion for man and beast, assuming, that is to say, that 
the man and beast desire to spend the night. The 
other house, the Blue Boar, is a mere beerhouse, where 
the lower strata of Belpher society gather of a night 
to quench their thirst and to tell one another inter- 
minable stories without any point whatsoever. 

But the Marshmoreton Arms is a comfortable, 
respectable hostelry, catering for the village plutocrats. 
There of an evening you will find the local veterinary 
surgeon smoking a pipe with the grocer, the baker 
and the butcher, with perhaps a sprinkling of neighbor- 
ing farmers to help the conversation along. On Satur- 
days there is a “shilling ordinary” — which is rural 
English for a cut off the joint and a boiled potato, 
followed by hunks of the sort of cheese which believes 
that it pays to advertise — and this is usually well at- 
tended. On the other days of the week, until late 
in the evening, however, the visitor to the Marshmore- 
ton Arms has the place almost entirely to himself. 

87 


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It is to be questioned whether in the whole length 
and breadth of the world there is a more admirable 
spot for a man in love to pass a day or two than the 
typical English village. The Rocky Mountains, that 
traditional stamping ground for the heartbroken, may 
be well enough in their way ; but a lover has to be cast 
in a pretty stern mold to be able to be introspective 
when at any moment he may meet an annoyed cinna- 
mon bear. In the English village there are no such 
obstacles to meditation. It combines the comforts of 
civilization with the restfulness of solitude in a manner 
equaled by no other spot except the New York Public 
Library. Here your lover may wander to and fro 
unmolested, speaking to nobody, by nobody addressed, 
and have the satisfaction of sitting down to a capitally 
cooked chop and chips, lubricated by golden English 
ale. 

Belpher, in addition to all the advantages of the 
usual village, has a quiet charm all its own, due to 
the fact that it has seen better days. In a sense, it is 
a ruin, and ruins are always soothing to the bruised 
soul. Ten years before Belpher had been a flourishing 
center of the South of England oyster trade. It is 
situated by the shore, where Hayling Island, lying 
athwart the mouth of the bay, forms the waters into 
a sort of brackish lagoon, in much the same way as 
Fire Island shuts off the Great South Bay of Long 
Island from the waves of the Atlantic. 

The water of Belpher Creek is shallow even at high 
tide, and when the tide runs out it leaves glistening 
mud flats, which it is the peculiar taste of the oyster 
to prefer to any other habitation. For years Belpher 
oysters had been the mainstay of gay supper parties 
at the Savoy, tlie Carlton and Romano’s. Dukes doted 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


89 


on them; chorus girls wept if they were not on the 
bill of fare. And then, in an evil hour, somebody dis- 
covered that what made the Belpher oyster so par- 
ticularly plump and succulent was the fact that it 
breakfasted, lunched and dined almost entirely on the 
local sewage. There is but a thin line ever between 
popular homage and popular execration. We see it in 
the case of politicians, generals and prize fighters; and 
oysters are no exception to the rule. There was a 
typhoid scare, quite a passing and unjustified scare, 
but strong enough to do its deadly work; and almost 
overnight Belpher passed from a place of flourishing 
industry to the sleepy, by-the-world-forgotten spot 
which it was when George Bevan discovered it. The 
shallow water is still there ; the mud is still there ; even 
the oyster beds are still there; but not the oysters or 
the little world of activity which had sprung up round 
them. The glory of Belpher is dead; and over its 
gates Ichabod is written. But if it has lost in im- 
portance it has gained in charm ; and George, for one, 
had no regrets. To him, in his present state of mental 
upheaval, Belpher was the ideal spot. 

It was not at first that George roused himself to 
the point of asking why he was here, and what — now 
that he was here — he proposed to do. For two 
languorous days he loafed, sufficiently occupied with 
his thoughts. He smoked long, peaceful pipes in the 
stable yard, watching the ostlers as. they groomed 
horses; he played with the inn puppy, bestowed re- 
spectful caresses on the inn cat. He walked down the 
quaint, cobbled street to the harbor, sauntered along 
the shore, and lay on his back on the little beach at 
the other side of the lagoon, from where he could see 


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the red roofs of the village, while the imitation waves 
splashed busily on the stones, trying to conceal with 
bustle and energy the fact that the water even two 
hundred yards from shore was only eighteen inches 
deep. For it is the abiding hope of Belpher Creek 
that it may be able to deceive the visitor into mistaking 
it for the open sea. 

And presently the tide would ebb. The waste of 
waters became a sea of mud, cheerfully covered as to 
much of its surface with green grasses. The evening 
sun struck rainbow colors from the moist softness. 
Birds sang in the thickets. And George, heaving him- 
self up, walked back to the friendly coziness of the 
Marshmoreton Arms. And the remarkable part of it 
was that everything seemed perfectly natural and 
sensible to him, nor had he any particular feeling that 
in falling in love with Lady Maud Marsh, and pursu- 
ing her to Belpher, he had set himself anything in 
the nature of a hopeless task. Like one kissed by a 
goddess in a dream, he walked on air; and while one 
is walking on air it is easy to overlook the bowlders 
in the path. 

Consider his position, you faint-hearted and self- 
pitying young men who think you have a tough row 
to hoe just because, when you pay your evening visit 
with the pound box of candy under your arm, you sec 
the handsome sophomore from Yale sitting beside her 
on the porch, playing the ukulele. If ever the world 
has turned black to you in such a situation, and the 
moon gone in behind a cloud, think of George Bevan 
and what he was up against. You, at least, are on the 
spot. You can, at least, put up a fight. If there are 
ukuleles in the world, there are also guitars, and to- 
morrow it may be you and not he who sits on the 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


91 


moonlit porch; it may be he and not you who arrives 
late. Who knows? To-morrow he may not show up 
till you have finished The Bedouin Love Song and are 
annoying the local birds roosting in the trees with 
Poor Butterfly. 

What I mean to say is, you are on the map. You 

have a sporting chance. Whereas George Well, 

just go over to England and try wooing an earl’s 
daughter whom you have met only once, and then 
without an introduction ; whose brother’s hat you have 
smashed beyond repair; whose family wishes her to 
marry some other man; who wants to marry some 
other man herself — and not the same other man but 
another other man; who is closely immured in a 
medieval castle. Well, all I say is — try it. And then 
go back to your porch with a chastened spirit and 
admit that you might be a whole lot worse off. 

George, as I say, had not envisaged the peculiar 
difficulties of his position. Nor did he until the eve- 
ning of his second day at the Marshmoreton Arms. 
Until then, as I have indicated, he roamed in a golden 
mist of dreamy meditation among the soothing by- 
ways of the village of Belpher. But after lunch on 
the second day it came upon him that all this sort of 
thing was pleasant but not practical. Action was what 
was needed. Action. 

The first, the obvious move was to locate the castle. 
Inquiries at the Marshmoreton Arms elicited the fact 
that it was ^'a step” up the road that ran past the front 
door of the inn. But this wasn’t the day of the week 
when the general public was admitted. The sightseer 
could invade Belpher Castle on Thursdays only, be- 
tween the hours of two and four. On other days of 
the week all he could do was to stand like Moses on 


92 


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Pisgah and take in the general effect from a distance. 
As this was all that George had hoped to be able to 
do, he set forth. 

It speedily became evident to George that step’' 
was a euphemism. Five miles did he tramp before, 
trudging wearily up a winding lane, he came out on 
a breeze-swept hilltop, and saw below him, nestling 
in its trees, what was now for him the center of the 
world. He sat on a stone wall and lit a pipe. Bel- 
pher Castle. Her home. There it was. And now 
what? 

The first thought that came to him was practical, 
even prosaic — the thought that he couldn’t possibly do 
this five-miles-there-and-five-miles-back walk every 
time he wanted to see the place. He must shift his base 
nearer the scene of operations. One of those trim 
thatched cottages down there in the valley would be 
just the thing, if he could arrange to take possession 
of it. They sat there all round the castle, singly and 
in groups, like small dogs round their master. They 
looked as if they had been there for centuries. Probably 
they had, as they were made of stone as solid as that 
of the castle. There must have been a time, thought 
George, when the castle was the central rallying point 
for all those scattered homes; when rumor of danger 
from marauders had sent all that little community 
scuttling for safety to the sheltering walls. 

For the first time since he had set out on his 
expedition a certain chill, a discomforting sinking of 
the heart, afflicted George as he gazed down at the 
grim gray fortress which he had undertaken to storm. 
So must have felt those marauders of old when they 
climbed to the top of this very hill to spy out the land. 
And George’s case was even worse than theirs. They 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


93 

could at least hope that a strong arm and a stout heart 
would carry them past those solid walls ; they had not 
to think of social etiquette. Whereas George was so 
situated that an unsympathetic butler could put him 
to rout by refusing him admittance. 

The evening was drawing in. Already, in the brief 
time he had spent on the hilltop, the sky had turned 
from blue to saffron and from saffron to gray. The 
plaintive voices of homing cows floated up to him 
from the valley below. A bat had left its shelter and 
was wheeling round him, a sinister blot against the 
sky. George felt cold. He turned. The shadows 
of night wrapped him round, and little things in the 
hedge-rows chirped and chittered mockery at him 
as he stumbled down the lane. 

George's request for a lonely furnished cottage 
somewhere in the neighborhood of the castle did not, 
as he had feared, strike the Belpher house agent as 
the demand of a lunatic. Every well-dressed stranger 
who comes to Belpher is automatically set down by the 
natives as an artist, for the picturesqueness of the 
place has caused it to be much infested by the brothers 
and sisters of the brush. In asking for a cottage, in- 
deed, George did precisely as Belpher society expected 
him to do; and the agent was reaching for his list 
almost before the words were out of his mouth. In 
less than half an hour George was out in the street 
again, the owner for the season of what the agent 
described as a ‘"gem” and the employer of a farmer’s 
wife who lived near by and would, as was her custom 
with artists, come in morning and evening to ‘*do” for 
him. The interview would have taken but a few 
minutes, had it not been prolonged by the chattiness 
of the agent on the subject of the occupants of the 


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A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


castle, to which George listened attentively. He was 
not greatly encouraged by what he heard of Lord 
Marshmoreton. The earl had made himself notably 
unpopular in the village recently by his firm — the 
house agent said ‘‘pig-headed’" — attitude in respect to 
a certain dispute about a right of way. It was Lady 
Caroline, and not the easy-going peer, who was really 
to blame in the matter ; but the impression that George 
got from the house agent’s description of Lord Marsh- 
moreton was that the latter was a sort of Nero, possess- 
ing, in addition to the qualities of a Roman tyrant, 
many of the least lovable traits of the Gila monster 
of Arizona. Hearing this about her father, and hav- 
ing already had the privilege of meeting her brother 
and studying him at first-hand, his heart bled for 
Maud. It seemed to him that existence at the castle 
in such society must be little short of torture. 

“I must do something,” he muttered. “I must do 
something quick.” 

“Beg pardon ?” said the house agent. 

“Nothing,” said George. “Well, I’ll take that cot- 
tage. I’d better write you a check for the first month’s 
rent now.” 

So George took up his abode, full of strenuous, if 
vague, purpose, in the plainly furnished but not un- 
comfortable cottage known locally as “the one down 
by Platt’s.” He might have found a worse billet. 
It was a two-storied building of stained red brick, not 
one of the thatched nests on which he had looked down 
from the hill. Those were not for rent, being occupied 
by families whose ancestors had occupied them for 
generations back. The one down by Platt’s was a 
more modern structure — a speculation, in fact, of the 
farmer whose wife came to “do” for George, and 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


95 


designed especially to accommodate the stranger who 
had the desire and the money to rent it. It so departed 
from type that it possessed a small but undeniable 
bathroom. Besides this miracle there was a cozy 
sitting room, a larger bedroom on the floor above, 
and next to this an empty room facing north, which 
had evidently served artist occupants as a studio. The 
remainder of the ground floor was taken up by kitchen 
and scullery. The furniture was just furniture, con- 
structed by somebody who would probably have done 
very well if he }iad taken up some other line of in- 
dustry; but it was mitigated by a very fine and com- 
fortable wicker easy-chair, left there by one of last 
year’s artists; and other artists had helped along the 
good work by relieving the plainness of the walls with 
a landscape or two. In fact, when George had re- 
moved from the room two antimacassars, three group 
photographs of the farmer’s relations, an illuminated 
text, and a china statuette of the Infant Samuel, and 
stacked them in a comer of the empty studio, the 
place became almost a home from home. 

Solitude can be very unsolitary if a man is in love. 
George never even began to be bored. The only thing 
that in any way troubled his peace was the thought 
that he was not accomplishing a great deal in the 
matter of helping Maud out of whatever trouble it 
was that had befallen her. The most he could do 
was to prowl about roads near the castle in the hope 
of an accidental meeting. And such was his good 
fortune that, on the fourth day of his vigil, the ac- 
cidental meeting occurred. 

Taking his morning prowl along the lanes he was 
rewarded by the sight of a gray racing-car at the side 
of the road. It was empty, but from underneath it 


96 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


protruded a pair of long legs, while beside it stood a 
girl, at the sight of whom George’s heart began to 
thump so violently that the long-legged one might 
have been pardoned had he supposed that his engine 
had started again of its own volition. 

Until he spoke the soft grass had kept her from 
hearing his approach. He stopped close behind her 
and cleared his throat She started and turned, and 
their eyes met. 

For a moment hers were empty of any recognition. 
Then tliey lit up. She caught her breath quickly, and 
a faint flush came into her face. 

“Can I help you ?” asked George. 

The long legs wriggled out into the road, followed 
by a long body. The young man under the car sat 
up, turning a grease-streaked and pleasant face to 
George. 

“Eh, what?” 

“Can I help you? I know how to fix a car.” 

The young man beamed in friendly fashion. 

‘0;t’s awfully good of you, old chap, but so do I. 
It’s the only thing I can do well. Thanks very much 
and so forth all the same.” 

George fastened his eyes on the girl’s. She had not 
spoken. 

“If there is anything in the world I can possibly 
do for you,” he said slowly, “I hope you will let m^ 
know. I should like above all things to help you.” 

The girl spoke. 

“Thank you,’" she said in a low voice, almost 
inaudible. 

George walked away. The grease-streaked young 
man followed him with his gaze. 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


97 


‘'Civil cove, that,” he said. “Rather gushing, though, 
what? American, wasn’t he?” 

“Yes, I think he was.” 

“Americans are the civilest coves I ever struck. I 
remember asking the way of a chappie at Baltimore a 
couple of years ago when I was there in my yacht, 
and he followed me for miles, shrieking advice and 
encouragement. I thought it deuced civil of him.” 

“I wish you would hurry and get the car right, 
Reggie. We shall be awfuly late for lunch.” 

Reggie Byng began to slide backward under the 
automobile. 

“All right, dear heart. Rely on me. It’s some- 
thing quite simple.” 

“Well, do be quick.” 

“Imitation of greased lightning — ^very difficult,” 
said Reggie encouragingly. “Be patient. Try and 
amuse yourself somehow. Ask yourself a riddle. Tell 
yourself a few anecdotes. I’ll be with you in a moment. 
I say, I wonder what that cove is doing at Belpher. 
Deuced civil cove,” said Reggie approvingly. “I liked 
him. And now, business of repairing breakdown.” 

His smiling face vanished under the car like the 
Cheshire cat. Maud stood looking thoughtfully down 
the road in the direction in which George had di^ 
appeared. 


VIII 


T he following day was a Thursday, and on Thurs- 
days, as has been stated, Belpher Castle was 
thrown open to the general public between the hours 
of two and four. It was a tradition of long standing, 
this periodical lowering of the barriers, and had al- 
ways been faithfully observed by Lord Marshmoreton 
ever since his accession to the title. By the permanent 
occupants of the castle the day was regarded with 
mixed feelings. Lord Belpher, while approving of 
it in theory, as he did of all the family traditions — for 
he was a great supporter of all things feudal and took 
his position as one of the hereditary aristocracy of 
Great Britain extremely seriously — heartily disliked 
it in practice. More than once he had been obliged 
to exit hastily by a farther door in order to keep from 
being discovered by a drove of tourists intent on in- 
specting the library or the great drawing-room; and 
now it was his custom to retire to his bedroom im- 
mediately after lunch and not to emerge until the tide 
of invasion had ebbed away. 

Keggs, the butler, always looked forward to Thurs- 
days with pleasurable anticipation. He enjoyed the 
sense of added authority which it gave him to herd 
these poor outcasts to and fro among the surround- 
ings which were an everyday commonplace to himself. 
Also he liked hearing the sound of his own voice as 
it lectured in rolling periods on the objects of interest 
by the wayside. But even to Keggs there was bitter 

98 


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99 


mixed with the sweet. No one was better aware than 
himself that the nobility of his manner, excellent as a 
means of impressing the mob, worked against him 
when it came to a question of tips. Again and again 
had he been harrowed by the spectacle of tourists, 
huddled together like sheep, debating among them- 
selves in nervous whispers as to whether they could 
offer this personage anything so contemptible as half 
a crown for himself — and deciding that such an insult 
was out of the question. It was his constant endeavor, 
especially toward the end of the proceedings, to 
cultivate a manner blending a dignity fitting his posi- 
tion with a sunny geniality which would allay the 
timid doubts of the tourist and indicate to him that, 
bizarre as the idea might seem, there was nothing to 
prevent his placing his poor silver in more worthy 
hands. 

Possibly the only member of the castle community 
who was absolutely indifferent to these public visits 
was Lord Marshmoreton. He made no difference be- 
tween Thursday and any other day. Precisely as usual 
he donned his stained corduroys and pottered about 
his beloved garden; and when, as happened on an 
average once a quarter, some visitor, strayed from 
the main herd, came upon him as he worked and mis- 
took him for one of the gardeners, he accepted the 
error without any attempt at explanation, sometimes 
going so far as to encourage it by adopting a rustic 
accent in keeping with his appearance. This sort of 
thing tickled the simple-minded peer. 

George joined the procession punctually at two 
o’clock, just as Keggs was clearing his throat prepara- 
tory to saying: ‘'We are now in the main ^all and be- 


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A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


fore going any further I would like to call your at- 
tention to Sir Peter Lely’s portrait of It was 

his custom to begin his Thursday lectures with this 
remark, but to-day it was postponed; for no sooner 
had George appeared than a breezy voice on the out- 
skirts of the throng spoke in a tone that made com- 
petition impossible. 

‘Tor goodness’ sake! George!” 

And Billie Dore detached herself from the group, a 
trim vision in blue. She wore a dustcoat and a motor 
veil, and her eyes and cheeks were glowing from the 
fresh air. 

“For goodness’ sake, George, what are you doing 
here?” 

“I was just going to ask you the same thing.” 

“Oh, I motored down with a boy I know. We had 
a breakdown just outside the gates. We were on our 
way to Brighton for lunch. He suggested I should 
pass the time seeing the sights while he fixed up the 
sprockets or the differential gear or whatever it was. 
He’s coming to pick me up when he’s through. But 
on the level, George, how do you get this way? You 
sneak out of town and leave the show flat, and nobody 
has a notion where you are. Why, we were thinking 
of advertising for you or going to the police or some- 
thing. For all anybody knew, you might have been 
sandbagged or dropped in the river.” 

This aspect of the matter had not occurred to George 
till now. His sudden descent on Belpher had seemed 
to him the only natural course to pursue. ' He had not 
realized that he would be missed and that his absence 
might have caused grave inconvenience to a large num- 
ber of people. 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


101 


'T never thought of that. I — well, I just happened 
to come here.” 

‘‘You aren^t living in this old castle?” 

“Not quite. IVe a cottage down the road. I wanted 
a few days in the country, so I rented it.” 

“But what made you choose this place?” 

Keggs, who had been regarding these disturbers of 
the peace with dignified disapproval, coughed. 

“If you would not mind, madam, we are waiting.” 

“Eh? How's that?” Miss Dore looked up with a 
bright smile. “I’m sorry. Come along, George. Get 
in the game.” She nodded cheerfully to the butler. 
“All right. All set now. You may fire when ready, 
Gridley.” 

Keggs bowed austerely and cleared his throat again. 

“We are now in the main ’all, and before going 
any further I would like to call your attention to Sir 
Peter Lely’s portrait of the fifth countess. Said by 
experts to be in his best manner.” 

There was an almost soundless murmur from the 
mob, expressive of wonder and awe, like a gentle 
breeze rustling leaves. Billie Dore resumed her con- 
versation in a whisper. 

“Yes, there was an awful lot of excitement when 
they found that you had disappeared. They were 
phoning the Carlton every ten minutes, trying to get 
you. You see, the summer-time number flopped on the 
second night, and they hadn’t anything to put in its 
place. But it’s all right. They took it out and sewed 
up the wound, and now you’d never know there had 
been anything wrong. The show was ten minutes too 
long anyway.” 

“How’s die show going?” 

“It’s a riot. They think it will run two years in 


102 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


London. As far as I can make it out, you don't call 
it a success in London unless you can take your grand- 
children to see the thousandth night." 

“That’s splendid. And how is everybody? All 
right?" 

“Fine. That fellow Gray is still hanging round 
Babe. It beats me what she sees in him. Anybody 
but an infant could see the man wasn’t on the level. 
Well, I don’t blame you for quitting London, George. 
This sort of thing is worth fifty Londons." 

The procession had reached one of the upper rooms, 
and they were looking down from a window that com- 
manded a sweep of miles of the countryside, rolling 
and green and wooded. Far away beyond the last 
covert Belpher Bay gleamed like a streak of silver. 
Billie Dore gave a little sigh. 

“There’s nothing like this in the world. I’d like to 
stand here for the rest of my life, just lapping it up." 

“I will call your attention," boomed Keggs at their 
elbow, “to this window, known in the fem’ly tredition 
as Leonard’s Leap. It was in the year seventeen 
’undred and eighty-seven that Lord Leonard Forth, 
eldest son of ’Is Grace the Dook of Lochlane, ’urled 
’imself out of this window in order to avoid com- 
promising the beautiful Countess of Marshmoreton, 
with oom ’e is related to ’ave ’ad an innocent romance. 
Surprised at an advanced hour by ’is lordship the earl 
in ’er ladyship’s boudoir, as this room then was, ’e 
leaped through the open window into the boughs of 
the cedar tree which stands below, and was fortunate 
enough to escape with a few ’armless contusions." 

A murmur of admiration greeted the recital of the 
ready tact of this eighteenth-century Steve Brodie. 

“There," said Billie enthusiastically, “that’s exactly 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


103 


what I mean about this country. It's just a mass of 
Leonard’s Leaps and things. I’d like to settle down 
in this sort of place and spend the rest of my life milk- 
ing cows and taking forkfuls of soup to the deserving 
villagers.” 

“We will now,” said Keggs, herding the mob with 
a gesture, “proceed to the amber drawing-room, con- 
taining some Gobelin tapestries ’ighly spoken of by 
connoozers.” 

The obedient mob began to drift out in his wake. 

“What do you say, George,” asked Billie in an under- 
tone, “if we side-step the amber drawing-room? I’m 
wild to get into that garden. There’s a man working 
among those roses. Maybe he would show us round.” 

George followed her pointing finger. Just below 
them a sturdy, brown-faced man in corduroys was 
pausing to light a stubby pipe. 

“Just as you like.” 

They made their way down the great staircase. The 
voice of Keggs, saying complimentary things about 
the Gobelin tapestry, came to their ears like the roll 
of distant drums. They wandered out toward the 
rose garden. The man in corduroys had lit his pipe 
and was bending once more to his task. 

“Well, dadda,” said Billie amiably, “how are the 
crops ?” 

The man straightened himself. He was a nice- 
looking man of middle age, with the kind eyes of a 
friendly dog. He smiled genially and started to put 
his pipe away. 

Billie stopped him. 

“Don’t stop smoking on my account,” she said. “I 
like it. Well, you’ve got the right sort of a job, 
haven’t you! If I were a man there’s nothing I’d like 


104 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


better than to put in my eight hours in a rose garden.” 
She looked about her. “And this,” she said with ap- 
proval, “is just what a rose garden ought to be.” 

“Are you fond of roses, missy ?” 

“You bet I am! You must have every kind here 
that was ever invented. All the fifty-seven varieties.” 

“There are nearly three thousand varieties,” said 
the man in corduroys tolerantly. 

“I was speaking colloquially, dadda. You can't 
teach me anything about roses. I’m the guy that 
invented them. Got any Ayrshires?” 

The man in corduroys seemed to have come to 
the conclusion that Billie was the only thing on earth 
that mattered. This revelation of a kindred spirit 
had captured him completely. George was merely 
among those present. 

“Those — them — over there are Ayrshires, missy.” 

“We don’t get Ayrshires in America — at least, I 
never ran across them. I suppose they do have them.” 

“You want the right soil.” 

“Clay and lots of rain.” 

“You’re right.” 

There was an earnest expression on Billie Dore’s 
face that George had never seen there before. 

“Say, listen, dadda, in this matter of rose beetles, 
what would you do if ” 

George moved away. The conversation was be- 
coming too technical for him, and he had an idea that 
he would not be missed. There had come to him, 
moreover, in a flash one of those sudden inspirations 
which great generals get. He had visited the castle 
this afternoon without any settled plan other than a 
vague hope that he might somehow see Maud. He 
now perceived that there was no chance of doing this. 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


105 


Evidently on Thursdays the family went to earth and 
remained hidden until the sightseers had gone. But 
there was another avenue of communication open to 
him. 

This gardener seemed an exceptionally intelligent 
man. He could be trusted to deliver a note to Maud. 

In his late rambles about Belpher Castle in the com- 
pany of Keggs and his followers George had been 
privileged to inspect the library. It was an easily 
accessible room, opening off the main hall. He left 
Billie and her new friend deep in a discussion of slugs 
and plant lice, and walked quickly back to the house. 
The library was unoccupied. 

George was a thorough young man. He believed 
in leaving nothing to chance. The gardener had 
seemed a trustworthy soul, but you never knew. It 
was possible that he drank. He might forget or lose 
the precious note. So, with a wary eye on the door, 
George hastily scribbled it in duplicate. 

This took him but a few minutes. He went out 
into the garden again, to find Billie Dore on the point 
of stepping into a blue automobile. 

“Oh, there you are, George. I wondered where 
you liad got to. Say, I made quite a hit with dadda. 
I’ve given him my address, and he’s promised to send 
me a whole lot of roses. By the way, shake hands with 
Mr. Forsyth. This is George Bevan, Freddie, who 
wrote the music of our show.” 

The solemn youth at the wheel extended a hand. 

“Topping show! Topping music! Topping all 
round 

“Well, good-by, George. See you soon, I suppose?” 

“Oh, yes. Give my love to everybody.” 

“All right. Let her rip, Freddie. Good-by.” 


106 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


“Good-by/’ 

The blue car gathered speed and vanished down the 
drive. George returned to the man in corduroys, who 
had bent himself double in pursuit of a slug. 

“Just a minute,” said George hurriedly. He pulled 
out the first of the notes. “Give this to Lady Maud 
the first chance you get. It’s important. Here’s a 
sovereign for your trouble.” 

He hastened away. He noticed that gratification 
had turned the other nearly purple in the face, and 
was anxious to leave him. 

He was a modest young man, and effusive thanks 
always embarrassed him. 

There now remained the disposal of the duplicate 
note. It was hardly worth while, perhaps, taking such 
a precaution, but George knew that victories are woi; 
by those who take no chances. He had wandered per- 
haps a hundred yards from the rose garden, when he 
encountered a small boy in the many-buttoned uniform 
of a page. The boy had appeared from behind a big 
cedar, where, as a matter of fact, he had been smoking 
a stolen cigarette. 

“Do you want to earn half a crown?” asked George. 
The market value of messengers had slumped. 

The stripling held his hand out. 

“Give this note to Lady Maud.” 

“Right ho!” 

“See that it reaches her at once.” 

George walked off with the consciousness of a good 
day’s work done. Albert the page, having bitten his 
half crown, placed it in his pocket. Then he hurried 
away, a look of excitement and gratification in his 
deep-blue eyes. 


IX 


George and Billie Dore wandered to the 
^ ^ rose garden to interview the man in corduroys, 
Maud had been seated not a hundred yards away, in a 
very special haunt of her own, a cracked stucco temple 
set up in the days of the Regency on the shores of a 
little lily-covered pond. She was reading poetry to 
Albert the page. 

Albert the page was a recent addition to Maud's 
inner circle. She had interested herself in him some 
two months back in much the same spirit as the 
prisoner in his dungeon cell tames and pets the con- 
ventional mouse. To educate Albert, to raise him 
above his groove in life and develop his soul, appealed 
to her romantic nature as a worthy task and as a good 
way of filling in the time. It is an exceedingly moot 
point, and one which his associates of the Servants' 
Hall would have combated hotly, whether Albert 
possessed a soul. The most one can say for certain is 
that he looked as if he possessed one. To one who 
saw his deep-blue eyes and their sweet, pensive ex- 
pression as they searched the middle distance he seemed 
like a young angel. How was the watcher to know 
that the thought behind that far-off gaze was simply a 
speculation as to whether the bird on the cedar tree 
was or was not within range of his catapult? 

Certainly Maud had no such suspicion. She worked 
hopefully day by day to rouse Albert to an appreciation 
of the nobler things of life. 

107 


108 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


Not but what it was tough going. Even she ad- 
mitted that. Albert's soul did not soar readily. It 
refused to leap from the earth. His reception of the 
poem she was reading could scarcely have been called 
encouraging. Maud finished it in a hushed voice, and 
looked pensively across the dappled water of the pool. 
A gentle breeze stirred the water lilies so that they 
seemed to sigh. 

‘Tsn’t that beautiful, Albert?" she said. 

Albert's blue eyes lit up. His lips parted eagerly. 

‘That's the first hornet I seen ^is year," he said, 
pointing. 

Maud felt a little damped. 

“Haven't you been listening, Albert?" 

“Oh, yes, m'lady. Ain't he a wopper, too?" 

“Never mind the hornet, Albert." 

“Very good, m’lady." 

“I wish you wouldn't say ‘Very good, m’lady.* It's 

like — like ” She paused. She had been about to 

say that it was like a butler, but, she reflected regret- 
fully, it was probably Albert’s dearest ambition to be 
like a butler. “It doesn't sound right Just say 
‘Yes.’ " 

“Yes, m’lady." 

Maud was not enthusiastic about the “M’lady," but 
she let it go. After all, she had not quite settled in 
her own mind what exactly she wished Albert’s attitude 
toward herself to be. Broadly speaking, she wanted 
him to be as like as he could to a medieval page, one 
of those silk-and-satined little treasures she had read 
about in the Ingoldsby Legends. And, of course, they 
presumably said “my lady." And yet she felt, not for 
the first time, that it is not easy to revive the Middle 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


109 


Ages in these curious days. Pages, like other things, 
seem to have changed since then. 

'‘That poem was written by a very clever man who 
married one of my ancestresses. He ran away with 
her from this very castle in the seventeenth century.” 

“LorM” said Albert as a concession, but he was 
still interested in the hornet. 

“He was far below her in the eyes of the world, 
but she knew what a wonderful man he was, so she 
didn’t mind what people said about her marrying be- 
neath her.” 

“Like Susan when she married the pleeceman.” 

“Who was Susan ?” 

“Red-’eaded gel that used to be cook ’ere. Mr. 
Keggs says to ’er, ’e says: ‘You’re marryin’ beneath 
you, Susan,’ ’e says. I ’eard ’im. I was listenin’ at 
the door. And she says to ’im, she says, ‘Oh, go and 
boil your fat ’ead !’ she says.” 

This translation of a favorite romance into terms 
of the servants’ hall chilled Maud like a cold shower. 
She recoiled from it. 

“Wouldn’t you like to get a good education, Al- 
bert,” she said perseveringly, “and become a great 
poet and write wonderful poems ?” 

Albert considered the point and shook his head. 

“No, m’lady.” 

It was discouraging. But Maud was a girl of pluck. 
You cannot leap into strange cabs in Piccadilly unless 
you have pluck. She picked up another book from 
the stone seat. 

“Read me some of this,” she said, “and then tell 
me if it doesn’t make you feel you want to do big 
things.” 

Albert took the book cautiously. He was getting a 


110 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


little fed up with all this sort of thing. True, her 
ladyship gave him chocolates to eat during these ses- 
sions, but for all that it was too much like school for 
his taste. He regarded the open page with disfavor. 

‘'Go on,’' said Maud, closing her eyes. ‘Tt is very 
beautiful.” 

Albert began. He had a husky voice, due, it is to 
be feared, to precocious cigarette smoking; and his 
enunciation was not as good as it might have been : 

"Wiv bleckest morss the flowerpots 

Was — I mean were — thickly crusted, one and 
orl; 

Ther rusted niles fell from the knorts 
That 'eld the pear to ther garden worll. 

Ther broken sheds looked sed and stringe; 
Unlifted was the clinking latch ; 

Weeded and worn the ancient thatch 

Er-pon ther lownely moated gringe. 

She ownly said 'Me life is dreary, 

'E cometh nort,’ she said.” 

Albert rather liked this part. He was never happji 
in narratives unless it could be sprinkled with a plenti- 
ful supply of “He said’s” and “She said’s.” He 
finished with some gusto: 

“She said T am aweary, aweary, 

I would that I was dead !’ ” 

Maud had listened to this rendition of one of her 
most adored poems with much the same feeling which 
a composer with an oversensitive ear would suffer on 
hearing his pet opus assassinated by a schoolgirl. Al- 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


111 


bert, who was a willing lad and prepared, if such 
should be her desire, to plow his way through the entire 
seven stanzas, began the second verse, but Maud gently 
took the book away from him. Enough was suffi- 
cient. 

‘'Now, wouldn’t you like to be able to write a won- 
derful thing like that, Albert?” 

"Not me, m’lady.” 

"You wouldn’t like to be a poet when you grow 
up?” 

Albert shook his golden head. 

"I want to be a butcher when I grow up, m’lady.” 

Maud uttered a little cry. 

"A butcher?” 

"Yus, m’lady. Butchers earn good money,” he said, 
a light of enthusiasm in his blue eyes, for he was now 
on his favorite subject. "You’ve got to ’ave meat, 
yer see, m’lady. It ain’t like poetry, m’lady, which no 
one wants.” 

"But, Albert,” cried Maud faintly. "Killing poor 
animals! Surely you wouldn’t like that?” 

Albert’s eyes glowed softly, as might an acolyte’s at 
the sight of the censer. 

"Mr. Widgeon down at the ’ome farm,” he mur- 
mured reverently, "says, if I’m a good boy, ’e’ll let 
me watch ’im kill a pig Toosday.” 

He gazed out over the water lilies, his thoughts far 
away. Maud shuddered. She wondered if medieval 
pages were ever quite as earthy as this. 

"Perhaps you had better go now, Albert. They 
may be needing you in the house.” 

"Very good, m’lady.” 

Albert rose, not unwillingly to call it a day. He 
yvsis conscious of the need for a quiet cigarette. He 


112 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


was fond of Maud, but a man can’t spend all his 
time with the women. 

^Tigs squeal like billy-o, m’lady!’^ he observed, by 
way of adding a parting treasure to Maud’s stock of 
general knowledge. ‘‘Oo! ’Ear ’em a mile orf, you 
can !” 

Maud remained where she was, thinking, a wistful 
figure. Tennyson’s Mariana always made her wist- 
ful, even when rendered by Albert. In the occasional 
moods of sentimental depression which came to vary 
her normal cheerfulness, it seemed to her that the 
poem might have been written with a prophetic eye 
to her special case, so nearly did it crystallize in magic 
words her own story. 

With blackest moss the flowerpots 

Were thickly crusted, one and all. 

Well, no, not that particular part, perhaps. If he 
had found so much as one flowerpot of his even 
thinly crusted with any foreign substance. Lord Marsh- 
moreton would have gone through the place like an 
east wind, dismissing gardeners and undergardeners 
with every breath. But 

She only said, “My life is dreary. 

He cometh not,” she said ; 

She said, “I am aweary, aweary, 

I would that I were dead!” 

How exactly, at tliose moments when she was not 
out on the links picking them off the turf with a mid- 
iron or engaged in one of those other healthful sports 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


113 


which tend to take the mind off its troubles, those 
words summed up her case. 

Why didn’t Geoffrey come? Or at least write? 
She could not write to him. Letters from the castle 
left only by way of the castle post bag, which Rogers, 
the chauffeur, took down to the village every evening. 
Impossible to intrust the kind of letter she wished to 
write to any mode of delivery so public, especially 
now, when her movements were watched. To open 
and read another’s letters is a low and dastardly act, 
but she believed that Lady Caroline would do it like 
a shot. She longed to pour out her heart to Goeffrey 
in a long, intimate letter, but she did not dare to take 
the risk of writing for a wider public. Things were 
bad enough as it was, after that disastrous sortie to 
London. 

At this point a soothing vision came to her, the 
vision of George Be van knocking off her brother 
Percy’s hat. It was the only pleasant thing that had 
happened almost as far back as she could remember. 
And then for the first time her mind condescended to 
dwell for a moment on the author of that act, George 
Bevan, the friend in need, whom she had met only the 
day before in the lane. What was George doing at 
Belpher? His presence there was significant and his 
words more so. He had stated explicitly that he wished 
to help her. 

She found herself oppressed by the irony of things. 
A knight had come to the rescue, but the wrong 
knight. Why could it not have been Geoffrey who 
waited in ambush outside the castle, and not a pleasant 
but negligible stranger? Whether, deep down in her 
consciousness, she was aware of a fleeting sense of 


114! 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


disappointment in Geoffrey, a swiftly passing thought 
that he had failed her, she could hardly have said, so 
quickly did she crush it down. 

She pondered on the arrival of George. What was 
the use of his being somewhere in the neighborhood if 
she had no means of knowing where she could find 
him? Situated as she was, she could not wander at 
will about the countryside looking for him. And even 
if she found him, what then? There was not much 
that any stranger, however pleasant, could do. 

She flushed at a sudden thought. Of course there 
was something George could do for her, if he were 
willing. He could receive, dispatch and deliver letters. 
If only she could get in touch with him, she could, 
through him, get in touch with Geoffrey. 

The whole world changed for her. The sun was 
setting and chill little winds had begun to stir the lily 
pads, giving a depressing air to the scene ; but to Maud 
it seemed as if all nature smiled. With the egotism 
of love, she did not perceive that what she proposed 
to ask George to do was practically to fulfill the humble 
role of the hollow tree in which lovers dump letters to 
be extracted later; she did not consider George’s feel- 
ings at all. He had offered to help her, and this was 
his job. The world is full of Georges whose task it is 
to hang about in the background and make themselves 
unobtrusively useful. 

She had reached this conclusion when Albert, who 
had taken a short cut the more rapidly to accomplish 
his errand, burst upon her dramatically from the heart 
of a rhododendron thicket. 

‘‘M’lady! Gentleman give me this to give yer!’’ 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


115 


Maud read the note. It was brief and to the point: 

“I am staying near the castle at a cottage they call 
'the one down by Platt's.’ It is a rather new, red- 
brick place. You can easily find it. I shall be waiting 
there if you want me.” 

It was signed 'The Man in the Cab.” 

"Do you know a cottage called The one down by 
Platt’s,’ Albert?” asked Maud. 

"Yes, m’lady; it’s down by Platt’s farm. I see a 
chicken killed there Wednesday week. Do you know, 
m’lady, after a chicken’s ’ead is cut orf it goes running 
licketty-split 

Maud shivered slightly. Albert’s fresh young en- 
thusiasms frequently jarred upon her. 

"I find a friend of mine is staying there. I want 
you to take a note to him from me.” 

"Very good, m’lady.” 

"And, Albert.” 

"Yes, m’lady?” 

"Perhaps it would be as well if you said notliing 
about this matter to any of your friends.” 

In Lord Marshmoreton’s study a council of three 
was sitting in debate. The subject under discussion 
was that other note which George had written and so 
ill-advisedly intrusted to one whom he had taken for 
a guileless gardener. The council consisted of Lord 
Marshmoreton, looking rather shamefaced; his son 
Percy, looking swollen and serious; and Lady Caro- 
line Byng, looking like a tragedy queen. 

"This,” Lord Belpher was saying in a determined 
voice, "settles it. From now on Maud must not be 
allowed out of our sight.” 

Lord Marshmoreton spoke. 


116 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


‘1 rather wish/' he said regretfully, ‘1 hadn’t 
spoken about the note. I only mentioned it because I 
thought you might think it amusing.” 

^‘Amusing !” Lady Caroline’s voice shook the furni- 
ture. 

^‘Amusing that the fellow should have handed me 
of all people a letter for Maud,” explained her brother. 
‘‘I don’t want to get Maud into trouble.” 

'‘You are criminally weak,” said Lady Caroline 
severely. “I really honestly believe that you were 
capable of giving the note to that poor misguided 
girl and saying nothing about it.” She flushed. ‘‘The 
insolence of the man, coming here and settling down 
at the very gates of the castle! If it was anybody but 
that man Platt who was giving him shelter I should 
insist on his being turned out. But that man Platt 
would be only too glad to know that he is causing us 
annoyance.” 

“Quite!” said Lord Belpher. 

“You must go to this man as soon as possible,” con- 
tinued Lady Caroline, fixing her brother with a com- 
manding stare, “and do your best to make him see how 
abominable his behavior is.” 

“Oh, I couldn’t!” pleaded the earl. “I don’t know 
the fellow. He’d throw me out.” 

“Nonsense. Go at the very earliest opportunity.” 

“Oh, all right, all right, all right Well, I think I’ll 
be slipping out to the rose garden again now. There’s 
a clear hour before dinner.” 

There was a tap at the door. Alice Faraday entered, 
bearing papers, a smile of sweet helpfulness on her 
pretty face. 

“I hoped I should find you here. Lord Marshmore- 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


117 


ton. You promised to go over these notes with me, 
the ones about the Essex branch ” 

The hunted peer looked as if he were about to dive 
through the window. 

‘‘Some other time, some other time. I — I have im- 
portant matters 

“Oh, if you’re busy!” 

“Of course Lord Marshmoreton will be delighted to 
work on your notes. Miss Faraday,” said Lady Caro- 
line crisply. “Take this chair. We are just going.” 

Lord Marshmoreton gave one wistful glance 
through the open window. Then he sat down with a 
sigh and felt for his reading glasses. 


X 


'^^OUR true golfer is a man who, knowing that life 
^ is short and perfection hard to attain, neglects no 
opportunity of practicing his chosen sport, allowing 
neither wind nor weather nor any external influence 
to keep him from it. There is a story, with an ex- 
cellent moral lesson, of a golfer whose wife had 
determuied to leave him forever. ‘‘Will nothing alter 
your decision?’’ he said. “Will nothing induce you 
to stay? Well, then, while you’re packing I think I’ll 
go out on the lawn and rub up my putting a bit.” 

George Bevan was of this turn of mind. He might 
be in love; Romance might have sealed him for her 
own; but that was no reason for blinding himself to 
the fact that his long game was bound to suffer if he 
neglected to keep himself up to the mark. His first 
act on arriving at Belpher Village had been to ascertain 
whether there was a links in the neighborhood; and 
thither, on the morning after his visit to the castle 
and the delivery of the two notes, he repaired. 

At the hour of the day which he had selected the 
clubhouse was empty and he had just resigned himself 
to a solitary game when, with a whirr and a rattle, a 
gray racing-car drove up and from it emerged the 
same long young man whom, a couple of days earlier, 
he had seen wriggle out from underneath the same 
machine. It was Reggie Byng’s habit, also, not to 
allow anything, even love, to interfere with golf ; and 

Ii8 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


119 


not even the prospect of hanging about the castle 
grounds in the hope of catching a glimpse of Alice 
Faraday and exchanging timorous words with her 
had been enough to keep him from the links. 

Reggie surveyed George with a friendly eye. He 
had a dim recollection of having seen him before some- 
where at some time or other, and Reggie had the 
pleasing disposition which caused him to rank any- 
body whom he had seen somewhere at some time or 
other as a bosom friend. 

“Hullo ! Hullo ! Hullo 1” he observed. 

“Good morning,^’ said George. 

“Waiting for somebody?’^ 

“No.^’ 

“How about it, then? Shall we stagger forth?’’ 

“Delighted.” 

George found himself speculating upon Reggie. He 
was unable to place him. That he was a friend of 
Maud he knew, and guessed that he was also a resi- 
dent of the castle. He would have liked to question 
Reggie, to probe him, to collect from him inside in- 
formation as to the progress of events within the 
castle walls; but it is a peculiarity of golf, as of love, 
that it temporarily changes the natures of its victims; 
and Reggie, a confirmed babbler off the links, became 
while in action a stern, silent, intent person, his whole 
being centered on the game. With the exception of a 
casual remark of a technical nature when he met 
George on the various tees and an occasional expletive 
when things went wrong with his ball, he eschewed 
conversation. It was not till the end of the round that 
he became himself again. 

“If rd known you were such hot stuff,” he declared 
as George holed his eighteenth putt from a distance 


IW 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


of ten feet, 'T’d have got you to give me a stroke or 
two.” 

was on my game to-day,” said George modestly. 
‘‘Sometimes I slice as if I were cutting bread and can’t 
putt to hit a haystack.” 

“Let me know when one of those times comes along, 
and ril take you on again. I don’t know when I’ve 
seen anything fruitier than the way you got out of 
the bunker at the fifteenth. It reminded me of a match 
I saw between . . .” Reggie became technical. At 
the end of his observations he climbed into the gray 
car. 

“Can I drop you anywhere?” 

“Thanks,” said George, “if it’s not taking you out 
of your way.” 

“I’m staying at Belpher Castle.” 

“I live quite near there. Perhaps you’d care to 
come in and have a drink on your way ?” 

“A ripe scheme!” agreed Reggie. Ten minutes in 
the gray car ate up the distance between the links and 
George’s cottage. Reggie Byng passed these minutes, 
in the intervals of eluding carts and foiling the ap- 
parently suicidal intentions of some stray fowls, in 
jerky conversation on the subject of his iron-shots, 
with which he expressed a deep dissatisfaction. 

“Topping little place! Absolutely!” was the verdict 
he pronounced on the exterior of the cottage, as he 
followed George in. “I’ve often thought it would be 
a rather sound scheme to settle down in this sort of 
shanty and keep chickens and grow a honey-colored 
beard and have soup and jelly brought to you by the 
vicar’s wife, and so forth. Nothing to worry you then ! 
Do you live all alone here ?” 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 121 


George was busy squirting seltzer into his guest’s 
glass. 

“Yes. Mrs. Platt comes in and cooks for me — the 
farmer’s wife next door.” 

An exclamation from the other caused him to look 
up. Reggie Byng was staring at him, wide-eyed. 

“Great Scott — Mrs. Platt! Then you’re the 
Chappie 1” 

George found himself unequal to the intellectual 
pressure of the conversation. 

“The chappie?” 

“The chappie there’s all the row about. The mater 
was just telling me that you lived here.” 

“Is there a row about me ?” 

“Is there what 1” Reggie’s manner became solicitous. 
“I say, my dear old sportsman, I don’t want to be the 
bearer of bad tidings and what not, if you know what 
I mean, but didn’t you know there was a certain 
amount of angry passions rising and so forth because 
of you ? At the castle, I mean ? I don’t want to seem 
to be discussing your private affairs, and all that sort 
of thing, but what I mean is — well, you don’t expect 
you can come charging in the way you have without 
touching the family on the raw a bit. The daughter of 
the house falls in love with you; the son of the house 
languishes in chokey because he has a row with you 
in Piccadilly; and on top of all that you come here 
and camp out at the castle gates 1 Naturally the family 
are a bit peeved. Only natural, eh? I mean to say, 
what?” 

George listened to this address in bewilderment. 
Maud in love with him I It sounded incredible. That 
he should love her after their one meeting was a 
different thing altogether. That was perfectly natural 


122 A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


and in order. But that he should have had the in-- 
credible luck to win her affection — the thing struck 
him as grotesque and ridiculous. 

‘Tn love with me?'' he cried. ‘What on earth do 
you mean?" 

Reggie's bewilderment equaled his own. 

“Well, dash it all, old top, it surely isn't news to 
you? She must have told you. Why, she told me!*^ 

“Told you ? Am I going mad ?" 

“Absolutely! I mean, absolutely not! Look here." 
Reggie hesitated. The subject was delicate. But, 
once started, it might as well be proceeded with to 
some conclusion. A fellow couldn’t go on talking 
about his iron-shots after this, just as if nothing had 
happened. This was a time for the laying down of 
cards, the opening of hearts. “I say, you know," he 
went on, feeling his way, “you’ll probably think it 
deuced rummy of me talking like this — perfect 
stranger and what not — don’t even know each other’s 
names." 

“Mine's Bevan, if that'll be any help." 

“Thanks very much, old chap. Great help 1 Mine's 
Byng. Reggie Byng. Well, as we're all pals here 
and the meeting's tiled and so forth. I’ll start by say- 
ing that the mater is most deucedly set on my marry- 
ing Lady Maud. Been pals all our lives, you know. 
Children together, and all that sort of rot. Now 
there's nobody I think a more corking sportsman than 
Maud, if you know what I mean, but — this is where the 
catch comes in — I’m most frightfully in love with 
somebody else. Hopeless, and all that sort of thing, 
but still there it is. And all the while the mater be- 
hind me with a bradawl, sicking me on to propose to 
Maud, who wouldn’t have me if I were the only fellow 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


1S3 


on earth. You can’t imagine, my dear old chap, what 
a relief it was to both of us when she told me the other 
day that she was in love with you and wouldn’t dream 
of looking at anybody else. I tell you I went singing 
about the place !” 

George felt inclined to imitate his excellent example. 
A burst of song was the only adequate expression of 
the mood of heavenly happiness which this young 
man’s revelations had brought upon him. The whole 
world seemed different. Wings seemed to sprout from 
Reggie’s shapely shoulders. The air was filled with 
soft music. Even the wall paper seemed moderately 
attractive. 

He mixed himself a second highball. It was the 
next best thing to singing. 

‘T see,” he said. It was difficult to say anything. 

Reggie was regarding him enviously. 

‘T wish I knew how the deuce fellows set about 
making a girl fall in love with them. Other chappies 
seem to do it, but I can’t even start. She seems to sort 
of gaze through me, don’t you know. She kind of 
looks at me as if I were more to be pitied than cen- 
sured, but as if she thought I really ought to do some- 
thing about it. Of course she’s a devilish brainy girl 
and I’m a fearful chump. Makes it kind of hopeless, 
what ?” 

George, in his new-born happiness, found a pleasure 
in encouraging a less lucky mortal. 

‘‘Not a bit. You ought to ” 

“Yes?” said Reggie eagerly. 

George shook his head. 

“No, I don’t know,” he said. 

“Nor do I, dash it!” said Reggie. 

George pondered. 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


IM 

‘‘It seems to me it’s purely a question of luck. Either 
you’re lucky or you’re not. Look at me, for instance. 
What is there about me to make a wonderful girl love 
me?” 

“Nothing! I see what you mean. At least, what 
I mean to say is ” 

“No. You were right the first time. It’s all a 
question of luck. There’s nothing anyone can do.” 

“I hang about a good deal and get in her way,” said 
Reggie. “She’s always tripping over me. I thought 
that might help a bit.” 

“It might, of course.” 

“But, on the other hand, when we do meet I can’t 
think of anything to say.” 

“That’s bad.” 

“Deuced funny thing. I’m not what you’d call a 
silent sort of chappie by nature. But when I’m with 
her — I don’t know. It’s rum 1” He drained his glass 
and rose. “Well, I suppose I may as well be stagger- 
ing. Don’t get up. Have another game one of these 
days, what?” 

“Splendid. Any time you like.” 

“Well, so long.” 

“Good-by.” 

George gave himself up to glowing thoughts. For 
the first time in his life he seemed to be vividly aware 
of his own existence. It was as if he were some newly 
created thing. Everything around him and everything 
he did had taken on a strange and novel interest. He 
seemed to notice the ticking of the clock for the first 
time. When he raised his glass the action had a curi- 
ous air of newness. All his senses were oddly alert. 
He could even 

“How would it be,” inquired Reggie, appearing in 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 125 

the doorway like part of a conjuring trick, “if I gave 
her a flower or two every now and then ? Just thought 
of it as I was starting the car. She’s fond of flow- 
ers.” 

“Fine!” said George heartily. He had not heard a 
word. The alertness of senses which had come to 
him was accompanied by a strange inability to attend 
to other people’s speech. This would no doubt pass, 
but meanwhile it made him a poor listener. 

“Well, it’s worth trying,” said Reggie. “I’ll give 
it a whirl. Toodleoo!” 

“Good-by.” 

“Pip-pip!” 

Reggie withdrew, and presently came the noise of 
the car starting. George returned to his thoughts. 

Time, as we understand it, ceases to exist for a man 
in such circumstances. Whether it was a minute later 
or several hours, George did not know; but presently 
he was aware of a small boy standing beside him, a 
golden-haired boy with blue eyes, who wore the uni- 
form of a page. He came out of his trance. This, he 
recognized, was the boy to whom he had given the 
note for Maud. He was different from any other in- 
truder. He meant something in George’s scheme of 
things. 

“’Ullo!” said the youth. 

“Hullo Alphonso!” said George. 

“My name’s not Alphonso.” 

“Well, you be very careful or it soon may be.” 

“Got a note for yer from Lidy Mord.” 

“You’ll find some cake and ginger ale in the kitchen,” 
said the grateful George. “Give it a trial.” 

“Not ’arf !” said the stripling. 


XI 


G eorge opened the letter with trembling and 
reverent fingers. 

Dear Mr. Bevan : Thank you ever so much for your 
note, which Albert gave to me. How very, very kind — 

‘"Hey mister !’' 

George looked up testily. The boy Albert had re- 
appeared. 

“What’s the matter? Can’t you find the cake?” 
“I’ve found the kike,” rejoined Albert, adducing 
proof of the statement in the shape of a massive slice, 
from which he took a substantial bite to assist thought. 
“But I can’t find the ginger ile.” 

George waved him away. This interruption at such 
a moment was annoying. 

“Look for it, child, look for it! Sniff for it! Bay 
on its trail ! It’s somewhere about.” 

“’Wri’!” mumbled Albert through the cake. He 
flicked a crumb off his cheek with a tongue which 
would have excited the interest of an anteater. “I like 
ginger ile.” 

“Well, go and bathe in it.” 

“’Wri !” 

George returned to his letter. 

Dear Mr. Bevan : Thank you ever so much for your 
note, which Albert gave me. How very, very kind of 
you to come here like this 


126 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


m 


“Hey, mister!” 

“Good heavens 1” George glared. “Whaf s the mat- 
ter now ? Haven’t you found that ginger ale yet ?” 

“I’ve found the ginger ile right enough, but I can’t 
find the thing.” 

“The thing? What thing?” 

“The thing. The thing wot you open ginger ile 
with.” 

“Oh, you mean the thing ? It’s in the middle drawer 
of the dresser. Use your eyes, my boy!” 

“’Wri 1” 

George gave an overwrought sigh and began the 
letter again. 

Dear Mr. Bevan : Thank you ever so much for your 
note, which Albert gave me. How very, very kind of 
you to come here like this and to say that you would 
help me. And how clever of you to find me after I 
was so secretive that day in the cab ! You really can 
help me, if you are willing. It’s too long to explain in 
a note, but I am in great trouble, and there is nobody 
except you to help me. I will explain everything when 
I see you. The difficulty will be to slip away from 
home. They are watching me every moment, I’m 
afraid. But I will try my hardest to see you very soon. 

Yours sincerely, 

Maud Marsh. 

Just for a moment, it must be confessed, the tone 
of the letter a little damped George. He could not 
have said just what he had expected, but certainly 
Reggie’s revelations had prepared him for something 
rather warmer, something more in the style in which 
a girl would write to the man she loved. The next mo- 


128 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


merit, however, he saw how foolish any such expecta- 
tion had been. How on earth could any reasonable 
man expect a girl to let herself go at this stage of the 
proceedings ? It was for him to make the ^rst move. 
Naturally she wasn’t going to reveal her feelings until 
he had revealed his. George raised the letter to his 
lips and kissed it vigorously. 

“Hey, mister!” 

George started guiltily. The blush of shame over- 
spread his cheeks. The room seemed to echo with the 
sound of that fatuous kiss. 

“Kitty, kitty, kitty!” he called, snapping his fingers 
and repeating the incriminating noise. “I was just 
calling my cat,” he explained with dignity. “You 
didn’t see her in there, did you?” 

Albert’s blue eyes met his in a derisive stare. The 
lid of the left one fluttered. It was but too plain that 
Albert was not convinced. 

“A little black cat with a white shirt front,” babbled 
George perseveringly. “She’s usually either here or 
there or — or somewhere. Kitty ! kitty ! kitty !” 

The cupid’s bow of Albert’s mouth parted. He ut- 
tered one word : 

“Swank!” 

There was a tense silence. What Albert was think- 
ing one cannot say. The thoughts of youth are long, 
long thoughts. What George was thinking was that 
the late King Herod had been unjustly blamed for a 
policy which had been both statesmanlike and in the 
interests of the public. He was blaming the mawkish 
sentimentality of the modern legal system which ranks 
the evisceration and secret burial of small boys as a 
crime. 

“What do you mean?” 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


1^9 


“You know what I mean.” 

“IVe a good mind to ” 

Albert waved a deprecating hand. 

“It’s all right, mister. I’m yer friend.” 

“You are, are you? Well, don’t let it get about. 
I’ve got a reputation to keep up.” 

“I’m yer friend, I tell you. I can help yer. I want 
to help yer 1” 

George’s views on infanticide underwent a slight 
modification. After all, he felt, much must be ex- 
cused to youth. Youth thinks it funny to see a man 
kissing a letter. It is not funny, of course, it is beau- 
tiful; but it’s no good arguing the point. Let youth 
have its snigger, provided, after it has finished snig- 
gering, it intends to buckle to and be of practical as- 
sistance. Albert, as an ally, was not to be despised. 
George did not know what Albert’s duties as a page 
boy were, but they seemed to be of a nature that gave 
him plenty of leisure and freedom ; and a friendly resi- 
dent of the castle with leisure and freedom was just 
what he needed. 

“That’s very good of you,” he said, twisting his 
reluctant features into a smile. 

“I can ’elp!” persisted Albert. “Got a cigaroot?” 

“Do you smoke, child ?” 

“When I get ’old of a cigaroot I do.” 

“I’m sorry I can’t oblige you. I don’t smoke ciga- 
rettes.” 

“Then I’ll ’ave to ’ave one of my own,” said Albert 
moodily. 

He reached into the mysteries of his pocket and pro- 
duced a piece of string, a knife, the wishbone of a 
fowl, two marbles, a crushed cigarette and a match. 
Replacing the string, the knife, the wishbone and the 


130 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


marbles he ignited the match against the tightest part 
of his person and lit the cigarette. 

‘T can ’elp yen I know the ropes.” 

*^And smoke them,” said George, wincing. 

‘Tardon?” 

‘^Nothing.” 

Albert took an enjoyable whiff. 

^T know all about yen” 

‘‘You do?” 

“You and Lidy Mord.” 

“Oh, you do, do you?” 

“I was listening at the keyhole while the roXv was 
goin' on.” 

“There was a row, was there?” 

A faint smile of retrospective enjoyment lit up Al- 
bert’s face. 

^ “An orful row! Shoutin’ and yellin’ ^d cussin’ 
all over the shop. About you and Lidy Mord.” 

“And you drank it in, eh ?” 

“Pardon?” 

“I say, you listened ?” 

“Not ’arf, I listened! Seein* I’d just drawn you in 
the sweepstike, of course I listened — not ’arf 1” 

George did not follow him here. 

“The sweepstike? What’s a sweepstike?” 

“Why, a thing you put names in ’ats and draw ’em, 
and the one that gets the winning name wins the 
money.” 

“Oh, you mean a sweepstake!” 

“That’s wot I said — a sweepstike.” 

George was still puzzled. 

“But I don’t understand. How do you mean you 
drew me in a sweepstike — I mean a sweepstake ? What 
sweepstake ?” 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


131 


‘‘Down in the servants' 'all. Keggs, the butler, 
started it. I 'card 'im say he always 'ad one every place 
'e was in as a butler — leastways, whenever there was 
any dorters of the 'ouse. There's always a chance, 
when there's a 'ouse-party, of one of the dorters of 
the 'ouse gettin' married to one of the gents in the 
party, so Keggs 'e puts all of the gents' names in an 
'at, and you pay five shillings for a chance, and the 
one that draws the winning name gets the money. 
And if the dorter of the 'ouse don't get married that 
time, the money's put away and added to the pool for 
the next 'ouse party." 

George gasped. This revelation of life below stairs 
in the stately homes of England took his breath away. 
Then astonishment gave way to indignation. 

‘‘Do you mean to tell me that you — you worms made 
Lady Maud the — the prize of a sweepstake !" 

Albert was hurt. 

“Who're you calling worms?" 

George perceived the need of diplomacy. After all 
much depended on this child's good will. 

“I was referring to the butler — what's his name — - 
Keggs.” 

“'E ain't a worm, e's a serpint." Albert drew at his 
cigarette. His brow darkened. “ 'E does the draw- 
ing, Keggs does, and I'd like to know 'ow it is 'e al- 
ways manages to cop the f av'rit !" 

Albert chuckled. “But this time I done him proper. 
'E didn't want me in the thing at all — said I was too 
young. Tried to do the drawin' without me. ‘Clip 
that boy one side of the 'ead!' 'e says, ‘and turn 'im 
out!' 'e says. I says, ‘Yus, you will!’ I says. ‘And 
wot price me goin' to 'is lordship and blowing the gaff ?' 
I says. 'E says, ‘Oh, ori right !’ 'e says. ‘’ Ave it yer own 


132 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


way!^ says. ‘Where’s yer five shillings?’ ’e says. 
‘’Ere you are !’ I says. ‘Oh, very well,’ ’e says. ‘But 
you’ll ’ave to draw last,’ ’e says, ‘bein’ the youngest.’ 
Well, they started drawing the names, and of course 
Keggs ’as to draw Mr. Byng ” 

“Oh, he drew Mr. Byng, did he ?” 

“Yus. And everyone knew Reggie was the fav’rit. 
Smiled all over his fat face, the old serpint did, and 
when it come to my turn, ’e says to me ; ‘Sorry, Elbert !’ 
’e says, ‘but there ain’t no more names. They’ve give 
outl’ ‘Oh, they ’ave, ’ave they?’ I says. ‘Well, wot’s 
the matter with giving a fellow a sporting chance?’ I 
says. ‘’Ow do you mean?’ ’e says. ‘Why, write me 
out a ticket marked “Mr.X.”,’ I says. ‘Then if ’er lidy- 
ship marries anyone not in the ’ouse party, I cop!’ 
‘Orl right,’ ’e says, ‘but you know the conditions of 
this ’ere sweep. Nothin’ don’t count, only wot tikes 
plice during the two weeks of the ’ouse party,’ ’e says. 
‘Orl right,’ I says. ‘Write me ticket. It’s a fair 
sportin’ venture.’ So ’e writes me out me ticket, with 
‘Mr. X.’ on it, and I says to them all, I says, ‘I’d like 
to ’ave witnesses,’ I says, ‘to this ’ere thing. Do all 
you gents agree that if anyone not in the ’ouse party, 
and whose name ain’t on one of the other tickets, 
marries ’er lidyship, I get the pool?’ I says. They all 
says that’s right, and then I says to ’em all straight 
out, I says, ‘I ’appen to know,’ I says, ‘that ’er lidyship 
is in love with a gent that’s not in the party at all — 
an American gent,’ I says. They wouldn’t believe it 
at first but, when Keggs ’ad put two and two together 
and thought of one or two things that ’ad ’appened, ’e 
turned as white as a sheet and said it was a swindle 
and wanted the drawin’ done over again, but the others 
say ‘No,’ they says, ‘it’s quite fair,’ they says, and one 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


133 


of 'em offered me ten bob slap out for my ticket. But 
I stuck to it, I did. 

‘‘And that," concluded Albert, throwing the cigar- 
ette into the fire place just in time to prevent a scorched 
finger — “that’s why I’m going to ’elp yer !’’ 

There is probably no attitude of mind harder for 
the average man to maintain than that of aloof dis- 
approval. George was an average man, and during 
the degrading recital just concluded he had found him- 
self slipping. At first he had been revolted, then, in 
spite of himself, amused, and now, when all the facts 
were before him, he could induce his mind to think 
of nothing else than his good fortune in securing as 
an ally one who appeared to combine a precocious 
intelligence with a helpful lack of scruple. War is war 
and love is love, and in each the practical man inclines 
to demand from his fellow workers the punch rather 
than a lofty soul. A page boy replete with the finer 
feelings would have been useless in this crisis. Albert, 
who seemed on the evidence of a short but sufficient 
acquaintance to be a lad who would not recognize the 
finer feelings if they were handed to him on a plate 
with watercress round them, promised to be invaluable. 
Something in his manner told George that the child 
was bursting with schemes for his benefit. 

“Have some more cake, Albert,’’ he said ingratiat- 
ingly. The boy shook his head. 

“Do," urged George. “Just a little slice." 

“There ain’t no little slice," replied Albert with 
regret. “I’ve ate it all." He sighed and resumed : “I 
gotta scheme!" 

“Fine! What is it?" 

Albert knitted his brows. 

“It’s like this: You want to see ’er lidyship, but you 


134 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


can’t come to the castle and she can’t come to you, not 
with ’er fat brother doggin’ of ’er footsteps. That’s 
it, ain’t it? Or am I a liar?” 

George hastened to reassure him. 

'That is exactly it. What’s the answer?” 

'Til tell yer wot you can do. There’s the big ball 
to-night ’cos of its bein’ ’Is Nibs’ coming of age to- 
morrow. All the county’ll be ’ere ” 

"You think I could slip in and be taken for a guest?” 

Albert snorted contempt. 

"No, I don’t think nothin’ of the kind, not bein’ a 
fat-head.” George apologized. "But wot you could 
do’s this: I ’card Keggs torkin’ to the ’ousekeeper 
about ’avin’ to get in a lot of temp’y waiters to ’elp 
out for the night.” 

George reached forward and patted Albert on the 
head. 

"Don’t muss my ’air now,” warned that youth 
coldly. 

"Albert, you’re one of the great thinkers of the age. 
I could get into the castle as a waiter, and you could 
tell Lady Maud I was there, and we could arrange a 
meeting. Machiavelli couldn’t have thought of any- 
thing smoother.” 

"Mac who?” 

"One of your ancestors. Great schemer in his day. 
But one moment.” 

"Now what?” 

"How am I to get engaged? How do I get the 
job?” 

"That’s orl right. I’ll tell the ’ousekeeper you’re 
my cousin, been a waiter in America at the best 
restaurongs, ’ome for a ’oliday, but’ll come in for one 
night to oblige. They’ll pay yer a quid.” 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


135 


‘‘ril hand it over to you.” 

“Just,” said Albert approvingly, “wot I was goin^ 
to suggest meself.” 

“Then I’ll leave all the arrangements to you.” 

“You’d better, if you don’t want to mike a mess of 
everything. All you’ve got to do is to come to the 
servants’ entrance at eight sharp to-night and say 
you’re my cousin.” 

“That’s an awful thing to ask anyone to say.” 

“Pardon?” 

“Nothing!” 


( 


XII 


npHE great ball in honor of Lord Belpher’s coming 
of age was at its height. The reporter of the 
Belpher Intelligencer and Farmers^ Guide, who was 
present in his official capacity and had been allowed by 
butler Keggs to take a peep at the scene through a side 
door, justly observed in his account of the proceedings 
next day that the *'tout ensemble was fairylike,” and 
described the company as galaxy of fair women and 
brave men.” The floor was crowded with all that 
was best and noblest in the county; so that a half 
brick hurled at any given moment must infallibly have 
spilt blue blood. Peers stepped on the toes of knights; 
honorables bumped into the spines of baronets. Prob- 
ably the only titled person in the whole of the sur- 
rounding country who was not playing his part in the 
glittering scene was Lord Marshmoreton, who, on dis- 
covering that his private study had been converted 
into a way station for coats and hats, had retired to 
bed with a pipe and a copy of Roses Red and Roses 
White by Emily Ann Mackintosh — Popgood, Grooly 
& Co. — which he was to discover — after he was be- 
tween the sheets and it was too late to repair the error 
— was not, as he had supposed, a treatise on his favor- 
ite hobby, but a novel of stearine sentimentality deal- 
ing with the adventures of a pure young English girl 
and an artist named Claude. 

George, from the shaded seclusion of a gallery, 
looked down upon the brilliant throng with impatience. 

136 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


137 


It seemed to him that he had been doing this all his 
life. The novelty of the experience had long since 
ceased to divert him. It was all just like the second 
act of an old-fashioned musical comedy — Act Two: 
The Ballroom, Grantchester Towers; One Week Later 
— a resemblance which was heightened for him by the 
fact that the band had more than once played dead 
and buried melodies of his own composition, of which 
he had wearied a full eightecii months back. 

A complete absence of obstacles had attended his 
intrusion into the castle. A brief interview with a 
motherly old lady, whom even Albert seemed to treat 
with respect, and who, it appeared, was Mrs. Digby, 
the housekeeper, followed by an even briefer encounter 
with Keggs, fussy and irritable with responsibility and, 
even while talking to George, carrying on two other 
conversations on topics of the moment, and he was 
past the censors and free for one night only to add 
his presence to the chosen inside the walls of Belpher. 
His duties were to stand in this gallery and with the 
assistance of one of the maids to minister to the com- 
fort of such of the dancers as should use it as a sitting- 
out place. None had so far made their appearance, 
the superior attractions of the main floor having exer- 
cised a greater appeal, and for the past hour George 
had been alone with the maid and his thoughts. The 
maid, having asked George if he knew her cousin 
Frank, who had been in America nearly a year, and 
having received a reply in the negative, seemed to be 
disappointed in him and to lose interest, and had not 
spoken for twenty minutes. George scanned the ap- 
proaches to the balcony for a sight of Albert as the 
shipwrecked mariner scans the horizon for the passing 
sail. It was inevitable, he supposed, this waiting. It 


188 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


would be difficult for Maud to slip away even for a 
moment on such a night. 

'T say, laddie, would you mind getting me a lemon- 
ade r 

George was gazing over the balcony when the voice 
spoke behind him, and the muscles of his back stiffened 
as he recognized its genial note. This was one of the 
things he had prepared himself for, but, now that it 
had happened, he felt a wave of stage fright such as 
he had only once experienced before in his life — on 
the occasion when he had been young enough and in- 
experienced enough to take a curtain call on a first 
night. Reggie Byng was friendly and would not wil- 
fully betray him ; but Reggie was also a babbler, who 
could not be trusted to keep things to himself. It was 
necessary, he perceived, to take a strong line from the 
start and convince Reggie that any likeness which the 
latter might suppose he detected between his companion 
of that afternoon and the waiter of to-night existed 
only in his heated imagination. 

As George turned, Reggie’s pleasant face, pink with 
healthful exercise and Lord Marshmoreton’s finest 
Bollinger, lost most of its color. His eyes and mouth 
opened wider. The fact is, Reggie was shaken. All 
through the earlier part of the evening he had been 
sedulously priming himself with stimulants with a 
view to amassing enough nerve to propose to Alice 
Faraday; and now that he had drawn her away from 
the throng to this secluded nook and was about to put 
his fortune to the test, a horrible fear swept over him 
that he had overdone it. He was having optical 
illusions. 

^‘Good Lordr 

“Sir?’^ 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


139 


Reggie loosened his collar and pulled himself to- 
gether. 

'‘Would you mind taking a glass-of lemonade to the 
lady in blue sitting on the settee over there by the 
statue?” he said carefully. 

He brightened up a little. Pretty good, that! Not 
absolutely a test sentence, perhaps, like “Truly rural” 
or “The intricacies of the British Constitution”; but, 
nevertheless, no mean feat. 

“I say!” 

“Sir?” 

“You haven’t ever seen me before by any chance, 
if you know what I mean, have you?” 

“No, sir.” 

“You haven’t a brother, or anything of that shape 
or order, have you, no ?” 

“No, sir. I have often wished I had. I ought to 
have spoken to father about it. Father could never 
deny me anything.” 

Reggie blinked. His misgivings returned. Either 
his ears, like his eyes, were playing him tricks, or else 
this waiter chappie was talking pure drivel. 

“What’s that?” 

“Sir?” 

“What did you say?” 

“I said, ‘No, sir, I have no brother.^ ” 

“Didn’t you say something else?” 

“No, sir.” 

“What?” 

“No, sir.” 

Reggie’s worst suspicions were confirmed. 

“Then I am !” he muttered. 

Miss Faraday, when he joined her on the settee, 
wanted an explanation. 


140 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


‘What were you talking to that man about, Mr. 
Byng? You seemed to be having a very interesting 
conversation.'* 

“I was asking him if he had a brother." 

Miss Faraday glanced quickly at him. She had had 
a feeling for some time during the evening that his 
manner had been strange. 

“A brother ? What made you ask him that ?" 

“He — I mean — that is to say — what I mean is, he 
looked the sort of chap who might have a brother. 
Lots of those fellows have !" 

Alice Faraday's face took on a motherly look. She 
was fonder of Reggie than that lovesick youth sup- 
posed, and by sheer accident he had stumbled on the 
right road to her consideration. Alice Faraday was 
one of those girls whose dream it is to be a ministering 
angel to some chosen man, to be a good influence to 
him and raise him to an appreciation of nobler things. 
Hitherto Reggie's personality had seemed to her agree- 
able but negative. A positive vice like over-indulgence 
in alcohol altered him completely. It gave him a 
significance. 

“I told him to get you a lemonade," said Reggie. 
“He seems to be taking his time about it. Hi !" 

George approached deferentially. 

“Sir?" 

“Where’s that lemonade?" 

“Lemonade, sir?" 

“Didn’t I just ask you to bring this lady a glass of 
lemonade?" 

“I did not understand you to do so, sir." 

“But, great Scott! What were we chatting about, 
then?" 

“You were telling me a diverting story about an 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


141 


Irishman who landed in New York looking for work, 
sir. You would like a glass of lemonade, sir? Very 
good, sir/^ 

Alice placed a hand gently on Reggie^s arm. 

“Don’t you think you had better lie down for a 
little rest, Mr. Byng? I’m sure it would do you good.” 

The solicitous note in her voice made Reggie quiver 
like a jelly. He had never heard her speak like that 
before. For a moment he was inclined to lay bare his 
soul ; but his nerve was broken. He did not want her 
to mistake the outpouring of a strong man’s heart for 
the irresponsible ravings of a too hearty diner. It 
was one of life’s ironies. Here he was, for the first 
time all keyed up to go right ahead, and he couldn’t 
do it. 

“It’s the heat of the room,” said Alice. “Shall we 
go and sit outside on the terrace? Never mind about 
the lemonade. I’m not really thirsty.” 

Reggie followed her like a lamb. The prospect of 
the cool night air was grateful. 

“That,” murmured George, as he watched them de- 
part, “ought to hold you for a while!” 

He perceived Albert hastening toward him. 


XIII 


A lbert was in a hurry. He skimmed over the 
carpet like a water beetle. 

“Quick!’' he said. 

He cast a glance at the maid, George’s co-worker. 
She was reading a novelette with her back turned. 

“Tell ’er you’ll be back in five minutes,” said Al- 
bert, jerking a thumb. 

“Unnecessary. She won’t notice my absence. Ever 
since she discovered that I had never met her cousin 
Frank in America, I have meant nothing in her life.” 
“Then come on 1” 

“Where?” 

“I’ll show you.” 

That it was not the nearest and most direct route 
which they took to the trysting place, George became 
aware after he had followed his young guide through 
doors and upstairs and downstairs and had at last 
come to a halt in a room to which the sound of the 
music penetrated but faintly. He recognized the room. 
He had been in it before. It was the same room where 
he and Billie Dore had listened to Keggs telling the 
story of Lord Leonard and his Leap. That window 
there, he remembered now, opened onto the very 
balcony from which the historic Leonard had done 
his spectacular dive. That it should be the scene of 
this other secret meeting struck George as appropriate. 
The coincidence appealed to him. 

Albert vanished. George took a deep breath. Now 
142 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


143 


that the moment had arrived for which he had waited 
so long, he was aware of a return of that feeling of 
stage fright which had come upon him when he had 
heard Reggie Byng’s voice. This sort of thing, it 
must be remembered, was not in George’s usual line. 
His had been a quiet and uneventful life, and the 
only exciting thing which in his recollection had ever 
happened to him, previous to the dramatic entry of 
Lady Maud into his taxicab that day in Piccadilly, had 
occurred at college nearly ten years before, when a 
festive roommate, no doubt with the best motives, had 
placed a Mexican horned toad in his bed on the night 
of the Yale football game. 

A light footstep sounded outside, and the room 
whirled round George in a manner which, if it had 
happened to Reggie Byng, would have caused that 
injudicious drinker to abandon the habits^of a lifetime. 
When the furniture had returned to its place and the 
rug had ceased to spin, Maud was standing before 
him. 

Nothing is harder to remember than a once-seen 
face. It had caused George a good deal of distress 
and inconvenience that, try as he might, he could not 
conjure up anything more than a vague vision of what 
the only girl in the world really looked like. He had 
carried away with him from their meeting in the cab 
only a confused recollection of eyes that shone and a 
mouth that curved in a smile; and the brief moment 
in which he was able to refresh his memory, when he 
found her in the lane with Reggie Byng and the 
broken-down car, had not been enough to add definite- 
ness. The consequence was that Maud came upon him 
now with the stunning effect of beauty seen for the 
first time. He gasped. 


lU 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


In that dazzling ball dress, with the flush of dancing 
on her cheeks and the light of dancing in her eyes, she 
was so much more wonderful than any picture of her 
which memory had been able to produce for his inspec- 
tion that it was as if he had never seen her before. 

Even her brother Percy, a stern critic where his 
nearest and dearest were concerned, had admitted on 
meeting her in the drawing-room before dinner that 
that particular dress suited Maud. It was a shimmer- 
ing dream thing of rose leaves and moonbeams. 

That, at least, was how it struck George. A dress- 
maker would have found a longer and less romantic 
description for it. But that does not matter. Who- 
ever wishes for a cold and technical catalogue of the 
stuffs which went to make up the picture that deprived 
George of speech may consult the files of the Belpher 
Intelligencer and Farmers’ Guide, and read the report 
of the editor’s wife, who “does” the dresses for the 
Intelligencer under the penname of Birdie Bright-Eye. 
As far as George was concerned, the thing was made 
of rose leaves and moonbeams. 

George, as I say, was deprived of speech. That 
any girl could possibly look so beautiful was enough to 
paralyze his faculties; but that this ethereal being 
straight from Fairyland could have stooped to love 
him — him — an earthy brute who wore sock-suspend- 
ers and drank coffee for breakfast — that was what 
robbed George of the power to articulate. He could 
do nothing but look at her. 

From the Hills of Fairyland soft music came. Or, 
if we must be exact, Maud spoke. 

“I couldn’t get away before!” Then she stopped 
short and darted to the door, listening. “Was that 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


145 


somebody coming? I had to cut a dance with Mr. 
Plummer to get here, and Pm so afraid he may '' 

He had! A moment later it was only too evident 
that this was precisely what Mr. Plummer had done. 
There was a footstep on the stairs, a heavy footstep 
this time, and from outside the voice of the pursuer 
made itself heard : 

‘'Oh, there you are, Lady Maud! I was looking for 
you. This is our dance.” 

George did not know who Mr. Plummer was. He 
did not want to know. His only thought regarding 
Mr. Plummer was a passionate realization of the super- 
fluity of his existence. It is the presence on the globe 
of these Plummers that delays the coming of the 
millennium. 

His stunned mind leaped into sudden activity. He 
must not be found here, that was certain. Waiters 
who ramble at large about a feudal castle, and are 
discovered in conversation with the daughter of the 
house, excite comment. And, conversely, daughters of 
the house who talk in secluded rooms with waiters 
also find explanations necessary. He must withdraw. 
He must withdraw quickly. And, as a gesture from 
Maud indicated, the withdrawal must be effected 
through the French window opening on the balcony. 
Estimating the distance that separated him from the 
approaching Plummer at three stairs — the voice had 
come from below — and a landing, the space of time 
allotted to him by a hustling fate for disappearing 
was some four seconds. Inside two and a half the 
French window had opened and closed, and George 
was out under the stars, with the cool winds of the 
night playing on his heated forehead. 

He had now time for meditation. There are few 


146 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


situations which provide more scope for meditation 
than that of the man penned up on a small balcony a 
considerable distance from the ground, with his only 
avenue of retreat cut off behind him. So George 
meditated. First, he mused on Plummer. He thought 
some hard thoughts about Plummer. Then he brooded 
on the unkindness of a fortune which had granted him 
the opportunity of this meeting with Maud, only to 
snatch it away almost before it had begun. He won- 
dered how long the late Lord Leonard had been per- 
mitted to talk on that other occasion before he, too, had 
had to retire through this same window. There was 
no doubt about one thing — lovers who chose that room 
for their interviews seemed to have very little luck. 

It had not occurred to George at first that there 
could be any further disadvantages attached to his 
position other than the obvious drawbacks which ha^ 
already come to his notice. He was now to perceive 
that he had been mistaken. A voice was speaking in 
the room he had left, a plainly audible voice, deep and 
throaty; and within a minute George had become 
aware that he was to suffer the additional discomfort 
of being obliged to listen to a fellow man — one could 
call Plummer that by stretching the facts a little — 
proposing marriage. The gruesomeness of the situa- 
tion became intensified. Of all moments when a man 
— and justice compelled George to admit that Plummer 
was technically human — of all moments when a man 
may by all the laws of decency demand to be alone 
without an audience of his own sex, the chiefest is the 
moment when he is asking a girl to marry him. 
George’s was a sensitive nature, and he writhed at the 
thought of playing the eavesdropper at such a time. 

He looked frantically about him for a means of 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


14.7 


escape. Plummer had now reached the stage of say-> 
ing at great length that he was not worthy of Maud. 
He said it over and over again in different ways. 
George was in hearty agreement with him, but he 
did not want to hear it. He wanted to get away. 
But how? Lord Leonard on a similar occasion had 
leaped. Some might argue, therefore, on the principle 
that what man had done man can do, that George 
should have imitated him. But men differ. There 
was a man attached to a circus who used to dive off 
the roof of Madison Square Garden onto a sloping 
board, strike it with his chest, turn a couple of somer- 
saults, reach the ground, bow six times, and go off to 
lunch. That sort of thing is a gift. Some of us have 
it, some have not. George had not. Painful as it was 
to hear Plummer floundering through his proposal of 
marriage, instinct told him that it would be far more 
painful to hurl himself out into mid-air on the sport- 
ing chance of having his downward progress arrested 
by the branches of the big tree that had upheld Lord 
Leonard. No, there seemed nothing for it but to re- 
main where he was. 

Inside the room, Plummer was now saying how 
much the marriage would please his mother. 

‘Tsst!’’ 

George looked about him. It seemed to him that 
he had heard a voice. He listened. No. Except for 
the barking of a distant dog, the faint wailing of a 
waltz, the rustle of a roosting bird, and the sound of 
Plummer saying that if her refusal was due to any- 
thing she might have heard about that breach-of- 
promise case of his a couple of years ago, he would 
like to state that he was more sinned against than 


148 A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


sinning, and that the girl had absolutely misunder- 
stood him — all was still, 

‘Tsst! Hey, mister!” 

It was a voice. It came from above. Was it ari 
angel’s voice? Not altogether. It was Albert’s. The 
boy was leaning out of a window some six feet higher 
up the castle wall. George, his eyes by now grown 
used to the darkness, perceived that the stripling 
gesticulated, as one having some message to impart. 
Then, glancing to one side, he saw that what looked 
like some kind of a rope swayed against the wall. He 
reached for it. The thing was not a rope; it was a 
knotted sheet. 

From above came Albert’s hoarse whisper: ‘‘Look 
alive 1” 

This was precisely what George wanted to do, for 
at least another fifty years or so; and it seemed to him 
as he stood there in the starlight, gingerly fingering this 
flimsy linen thing, that, if he were to suspend his hun- 
dred and eighty pounds of bone and sinew at the end 
of it over the black gulf outside the balcony, he would 
look alive for about five seconds ; and after that good- 
ness only knew how he would look. He knew all about 
knotted sheets. He had read a hundred stories in 
which heroes, heroines, low-comedy friends, and even 
villains did all sorts of reckless things with their assis- 
tance. There was not much comfort to be derived 
from that. It was one thing to read about people 
doing silly things like that, quite another to do them 
yourself. 

He gave Albert’s sheet a tentative shake. In all his 
experience he thought he had never come across any- 
thing so supremely unstable. One calls it Albert’s 
sheet for the sake of convenience. It was really Reggie 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


149 


Byng’s sheet. And when Reggie got to his room in 
the small hours of the morning and found the thing a 
mass of knots, he jumped to the conclusion — ^being a 
simple-hearted young man — that his bosom friend, 
Jack Ferris, who had come up from London to see 
Lord Belpher through the trying experiences of a com- 
ing-of-age party, had done it as a practical joke; and 
went and poured a jug of water over Jack’s bed. That 
is life! Just one long succession of misunderstandings 
and rash acts and what not. Absolutely! 

Albert was becoming impatient. He was in the posi- 
tion of a great general who thinks out some wonder- 
ful piece of strategy and can’t get his army to carry 
it out. Many boys, seeing Plummer enter the room 
below and listening at the keyhole and realizing that 
George must have hidden somewhere and deducing 
that he must be out on the balcony, would have been 
baffled as to how to proceed. Not so Albert. To dash 
up to Reggie Byng’s room and strip his sheet off the 
bed and tie it to the bedpost and fashion a series of 
knots in it and lower it out of the window took Albert 
about three minutes. His part in the business had 
been performed without a hitch. And now George, 
who had nothing in the world to do but the childish 
task of climbing up the sheet, was jeopardizing the 
success of the whole scheme by delay. Albert gave the 
sheet an irritable jerk. 

It was the worst thing he cduld have done. George 
had almost made up his mind to take a chance when 
the sheet was snatched from his grasp, as if it had 
been some live thing deliberately eluding his clutch. 
The thought of what would have happened had this 
occurred when he was in mid-air caused him to break 


150 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


out in a cold perspiration. He retired a pace and 
perched himself on the rail of the balcany. 

“Psst!’^ said Albert. 

“It’s no good saying Tsst!”’ rejoined George in 
an annoyed undertone. “I could say ‘Psst !’ Any fool 
could say ‘Psst !’ ” Albert, he considered, in leaning 
out of the window and saying “Psst!” was merely 
touching the fringe of the subject. 

It is probable that he would have remained seated 
on the balcony rail, regarding the sheet with cold 
aversion indefinitely, had not his hand been forced 
by the man Plummer. Plummer, during these last 
minutes, had shot his bolt. He had said everything 
that a man could say, much of it twice over ; and now 
he was through. All was ended. The verdict was in. 
No wedding bells for Plummer. 

“I think,” said Plummer gloomily, and the words 
smote on George’s ear like a knell, “I think I’d like a 
little air.” 

George leaped from his rail like a hunted grass- 
hopper. If Plummer was looking for air, it meant 
that he was going to come out on the balcony. There 
was only one thing to be done. It probably meant the 
abrupt conclusion of a promising career, but he could 
hesitate no longer. 

George grasped the sheet — it felt like a rope of cob- 
webs— and swung himself out. 

Maud looked out onto the balcony. Her heart, 
which had stood still when the rejected one opened the 
window and stepped forth to commune with the sooth- 
ing stars, beat again. There was no one there, only 
emptiness and Plummer. 

“This,” said Plummer somberly, gazing over the 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


151 


rail into the darkness, “is the place where that fellow 
what’s-his-name jumped off in the reign of thingummy, 
isn’t it?” 

Maud understood now, and a thrill of the purest 
admiration for George’s heroism swept over her. So, 
rather than compromise her, he had done Leonard’s 
leap! How splendid of him! ^If George, now sitting 
on Reggie Byng’s bed taking a rueful census of the bits 
of skin remaining on his hands and knees after his 
climb, could have read her thoughts, he would have 
felt well rewarded for his abrasions. 

“I’ve a jolly good mind,” said Plummer, “to do it 
myself !” He uttered a short, mirthless laugh. “Well, 
anyway,” he said recklessly, “I’ll jolly well go down- 
stairs and have a brandy-and-soda !” 

Albert finished untying the sheet from the bedpost 
and stuffed it under the pillow. 

“And now,” said Albert, “for a quiet smoke in 
the scullery.” 

These massive minds require their moments of re- 
laxation. 


XIV 


G EORGE’S idea was to get home quick. There 
was no possible chance of a second meeting with 
Maud that night. They had met and had been whirled 
asunder. No use to struggle with fate. Best to give 
in and hope that another time fate would be kinder. 
What George wanted now was to be away from all 
the gay glitter and the fairylike tout ensemble and the 
galaxy of fair women and brave men, safe in his own 
easy-chair, where nothing could happen to him. A 
nice sense of duty would no doubt have taken him 
back to his post in order fully to earn the sovereign 
which had been paid to him for his services as 
temporary waiter; but the voice of duty called to him 
in vain. If the British aristocracy desired refresh- 
ments, let them get them for themselves — and like it 1 
He was through. 

But if George had for the time being done with the 
British aristocracy, the British aristocracy had not 
done with him. Hardly had he reached the hall when 
he encountered the one member of the order whom 
he would most gladly have avoided. 

Lord Belpher was not in genial mood. Late hours 
always made his head ache, and he was not a dancing 
man; so that he was by now fully as weary of the 
fairylike tout ensemble as was George. But, being 
the center and cause of the night’s proceedings, he 
was compelled to be present to the finish. He was in 
the position of captains who must be the last to leave 
152 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


153 


their ships and of boys who stand on burning decks 
whence all but they had fled. He had spent several 
hours shaking hands with total strangers and receiv- 
ing with a frozen smile their felicitations on the 
attainment of his majority; and he could not have 
been called upon to meet a larger horde of relations 
than had surged round him that night if he had been 
a rabbit The Belpher connection was wide, straggling 
over most of England ; and first cousins, second cousins 
and even third and fourth cousins had debouched 
practically from every county on the map and marched 
upon the home of their ancestors. The effort of hav- 
ing to be civil to all of these had told upon Percy. Like 
the heroine of his sister Maud’s favorite poem he 
was ^'aweary, aweary,” and he wanted a drink. He 
regarded George’s appearance as exceedingly oppor- 
tune. 

‘'Get me a small bottle of champagne and bring it 
to the library.” 

“Yes, sir.” 

The two words sound innocent enough, but, wishing 
as he did to efface himself and avoid publicity, they 
were the most unfortunate which George could have 
chosen. If he had merely bowed acquiescence and de- 
parted, it is probable that Lord Belpher would not 
have taken a second look at him. Percy was in no con- 
dition to subject everyone he met to a minute scrutiny. 
But when you have been addressed for an entire life- 
time as “your lordship/’ it startles you when a waiter 
calls you “sir.” Lord Belpher gave George a glance 
in which reproof and pain were nicely mingled, emo- 
tions quickly supplanted by amazement. A gurgle 
escaped him. 

“Stop !” he cried, as George turned away. 


154 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


Percy was rattled. The crisis found him in two 
minds. On the one hand, he would have been pre- 
pared to take oath that this man before him was the 
man who had knocked off his hat in Piccadilly. The 
likeness had struck him like a blow the moment he 
had taken a good look at the fellow. On the other 
hand, there is nothing which is more likely to lead one 
astray than a resemblance. He had never forgotten 
the horror and humiliation of the occasion, which had 
happened in his fourteenth year, when a motherly 
woman at Paddington Station had called him ‘‘dearie’’ 
and publicly embraced him, on the erroneous supposi- 
tion that he was her nephew Philip. He must proceed 
cautiously. A brawl with an innocent waiter, coming 
on the heels of that infernal episode with the police- 
man, would give people the impression that assailing 
the lower orders had become a hobby of his. 

“Sir?” said George politely. 

His brazen front shook Lord Belpher’s confidence. 

“I haven’t seen you here before, have I?” was all 
he could find to say. 

“No, sir,” replied George smoothly. “I am only 
temporarily attached to the castle staff.” 

“Where do you come from?” 

“America, sir.” 

Lord Belpher started. 

“America !” 

“Yes, sir. I am in England on a vacation. My 
cousin Albert is page boy at the castle, and he told me 
there were a few vacancies for extra help to-night, so 
I applied and was given the job.” 

Lord Belpher frowned perplexedly. It all sounded 
entirely plausible. And, what was satisfactory, the 
statement could be checked by application to Keggs, 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


155 


the butler. And yet there was a lingering doubt. 
However, there seemed nothing to be gained by con- 
tinuing the conversation. 

‘T see,” he said at last. “Well, bring that cham- 
pagne to the library as quick as you can.” 

“Very good, sir.” 

Lord Belpher remained where he stood, brooding. 
Reason told him he ought to be satisfied, but he was 
not satisfied. It would have been different had he 
not known that this fellow with whom Maud had be- 
come entangled was in the neighborhood. And if that 
scoundrel had had the audacity to come and take a 
cottage at the castle gates, why not the audacity to 
invade the castle itself ? 

The appearance of one of the footmen, on his way 
through the hall with a tray, gave him the opportunity 
for further investigation. 

“Send Keggs to me !” 

“Very good, your lordship.” 

An interval and the butler arrived. Unlike Lord 
Belpher late hours were no hardship to Keggs. He 
was essentially a night-blooming flower. His brow 
was as free from wrinkles as his shirt front. He bore 
himself with the conscious dignity of one who, while 
he would have freely admitted he did not actually own 
the castle, was nevertheless aware that he was one 
of its most conspicuous ornaments. 

“You wished to see me, your lordship?” 

“Yes. Keggs, there are a number of outside mei; 
helping you to-night, aren’t there?” 

“Indubitably, your lordship. The unprecedented 
scale of the entertainment necessitated the engage- 
ment of a certain number of supernumeraries,” replied 
Keggs, with an easy fluency which Reggie Byng, now 


156 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


cooling his head on the lower terrace, would have bit- 
terly envied. ‘Tn the circumstances, such an arrange- 
ment was inevitable.’’ 

“You engaged all these men yourself ?” 

“In a manner of speaking, your lordship, and for 
all practical purposes, yes. Mrs. Digby, the ’ouse* 
keeper, conducted the actual negotiations in many 
cases, but the arrangement was in no instance con- 
sidered final till I had passed upon each applicant.” 

“Do you know anything of an American who says 
he is the cousin of the page boy?” 

“The boy Albert did introduce a nominee whom he 
stated to be ’is cousin from New York on a visit and 
anxious to oblige. I trust ’e ’as given no dissatisfac- 
tion, your lordship? He seemed a respectable young 
man.” 

“No, no, not at all. I merely wished to know if you 
knew him. One can’t be too careful.” 

“No, indeed, your lordship.” 

“That’s all then.” 

“Thank you, your lordship.” 

Lord Belpher was satisfied. He was also relieved. 
He felt that prudence and a steady head had kept him 
from making himself ridiculous. When George pres- 
ently returned with the life-saving fluid, he thanked 
him and turned his thoughts to other things. 

But if the young master was satisfied, Keggs was 
not. Upon Keggs a bright light had shone. There 
were few men, he flattered himself, who could more 
readily put two and two together and bring the sum 
to a correct answer. Keggs knew of the strange 
American gentleman who had taken up his abode at 
the cottage down by Platt’s farm. His looks, his 
habits, and his motives for coming there had formed 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


15T 


food for discussion tliroughout one whole meal in the 
servants^ hall; a stranger whose abstention from brush 
and palette showed him to be no artist being an object 
of interest. And while the solution put forward by a 
romantic lady’s maid, a great reader of novelettes, 
that the young man had come there to cure himself 
of some unhappy passion by communing with Nature, 
had been scoffed at by the company, Keggs had not 
been so sure that there might not be something in it. 
Later events had deepened his suspicion, which now, 
after this interview with Lord Belpher, had become 
certainty. 

The extreme fishiness of Albert’s sudden produc- 
tion of a cousin from America was so manifest that 
only his preoccupation at the moment when he met 
the young man could have prevented him seeing it 
before. His knowledge of Albert told him that, if 
one so versed as that youth in the art of swank had 
really possessed a cousin in America, he would long 
ago have been boring the servants’ hall with fictions 
about the man’s wealth and importance. For Albert 
not to lie about a thing practically proved that thing 
nonexistent. Such was the simple creed of Keggs. 

He accosted a passing fellow servitor. 

“Seen young blighted Albert anywhere, Freddy?” 

It was in this shameful manner that that master- 
mind was habitually referred to belowstairs. 

“Seen ’im going into the scullery not ’arf a minute 
ago,” replied Freddy. 

“Thanks.” 

“So long!” said Freddy. 

“Be good !” returned Keggs, whose mode of speech 
among those of his own world differed substantially 


158 A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


from that which he considered it became him to em- 
ploy when conversing with the titled. 

The fall of great men is but too often due to the 
failure of their miserable bodies to give the necessary 
support to their great brains. There are some, for 
example, who say that Napoleon would have won the 
battle of Waterloo if he had not had dyspepsia. Not 
otherwise was it with Albert on that present occasion. 
The arrival of Keggs found him at a disadvantage. 
He had been imprudent enough, on leaving George, 
to endeavor to smoke a cigar, purloined from the box 
which stood hospitably open on a table in the hall. 
But for this, who knows with what cunning counter- 
attacks he might have foiled the butler’s onslaught? 
As it was, the battle was a walk-over for the enemy. 

‘T’ve been looking for you, young blighted Albert 1” 
said Keggs coldly. 

Albert turned a green but defiant face to the foe. 

‘"Go and boil yer ’ead !” he advised. 

‘‘Never mind about my ’ead. If I was to do my 
duty by you. I’d give you a clip side of your ’ead, that’s 
what I’d do.” 

“And then bury it out in the woods,” added Albert, 
wincing as the consequences of his rash act swept 
through his small form like some nauseous tidal wave. 
He shut his eyes. It upset him to see Keggs shimmer- 
ing like that. A shimmering butler is an awful sight. 

Keggs laughed a hard laugh. 

“You and your cousins from America!” 

“What about my cousins from America?” 

“Yes, what about them? That’s just what Lord 
Belpher and me have been asking ourselves.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.” 

“You soon will, young blighted Albert! Who 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


159 


sneaked that American fellow into the ^ouse to meet 
Lady Maud?’^ 

“I never 

“Think I didn’t see through your little game? Why, 
I knew from the first.” 

“Yes, you did! Then why did you let him into the 
place?” 

Keggs snorted triumphantly. 

“There! You admit it! It was that feller !” 

Too late Albert saw his false move, a move which, 
in a normal state of health, he would have scorned to 
make. Just as Napoleon, minus a stomachache, would 
have scorned the blunder that sent his cuirassiers 
plunging to destruction in the sunken road. 

“I don’t know what you’re torkin’ about,” he said, 
weakly. 

“Well,” said Keggs, “I ’aven’t time to stand ’ere 
chatting with you. I must be going back to ’is lord- 
ship, to tell ’im of the ’orrid trick you played on 
him.” 

A second spasm shook Albert to the core of his 
being. The double assault was too much for him. Be- 
trayed by the body, the spirit yielded. 

“You wouldn’t do that, Mr. Keggs!” 

There was a white flag in every syllable. 

“I would, if I did my duty.” 

“But you don’t care about that,” urged Albert in- 
gratiatingly. 

“I’ll ’ave to think it over,” mused Keggs. “I don’t 
want to be ’ard on a young boy.” He struggled silently 
with himself. “Ruinin’ ’is prospecks!” An inspira- 
tion seemed to come to him. “All right, young blighted 
Albert,” he said briskly, “I’ll go against my better 
nature this once and chance it. And now, young fel- 


160 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


ler me lad, you just ’and over that ticket of yours! 
You know what I’m alloodin’ to! That ticket you 
’ad at the sweep, and one with *Mr. X’ on it.” 

Albert’s indomitable spirit triumphed for a moment 
over his stricken body. 

‘That’s likely, ain’t it 1” 

Keggs sighed — the sigh of a good man who has 
done his best to help a fellow being and has been 
baffled by the other’s perversity. 

“Just as you please,” he said sorrowfully. “But I 
did ’ope I shouldn’t ’ave to go to ’is lordship and tell 
’im ’ow you’ve deceived him.” 

Albert capitulated. 

“’Ere you are!” A piece of paper changed hands. 
“It’s men like you wot lead to ’arf the crime in the 
country 1” 

“Much obliged, me lad.” 

“You’d walk a mile in the snow, you would,” con- 
tinued Albert, pursuing his train of thought, “to rob 
a starving beggar of a ’alfpenny !” 

“Who’s robbing anyone? Don’t you talk so quick, 
young man. I’m going to do the right thing by you. 
You can ’ave my ticket marked ‘Reggie Byng.’ It’s 
a fair exchange, and no one the worse.” 

“Fat lot of good that is!” 

“That’s as it may be. Anyhow, there it is.” Keggs 
prepared to withdraw. “You’re too young to ’ave all 
that money, Albert. You wouldn’t know what to do 
with it. It wouldn’t make you ’appy. There’s other 
things in the world besides winning sweepstakes. And, 
properly speaking, you ought never to have been al- 
lowed to draw at all, being so young.” 

Albert groaned hollowly. 

“When you’ve finished torkin’ I wish you’d kindly 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


161 


'ave the goodness to leave me alone. Fm not my- 
self.” 

‘‘That,” said Keggs cordially, “is a bit of luck for 
you, my boy. Accept my ^eartiest felicitations!” 

Defeat is the test of the great man. Your true gen- 
eral is not he who rides to triumph on the tide of an 
easy victory, but the one who, when crushed to earth, 
can bend himself to the task of planning methods of 
rising again. Such a one was Albert, the page boy. 
Observe Albert in his attic bedroom scarcely more 
than an hour later. His body has practically ceased 
to trouble him, and his soaring spirit has come into 
its own again. With the exception of a now very oc- 
casional spasm, his physical anguish has passed, and 
he is thinking, thinking hard. On the chest of drawers 
is a grubby envelope, addressed in an ill-formed 
hand to 

R. Byng, Esq. 

On a sheet of paper, soon to be placed in the envelope, 
are written in the same hand these words : 

Do not dispare! Remember! Fante hart never 
won fair lady. I shall watch your futur progres with 
considurable interest. Your Well-Wisher. 

The last sentence is not original. Albert’s Sunday- 
school teacher said it to Albert on the occasion of his 
taking up his duties at the castle, and it stuck in his 
memory — fortunately, for it expressed exactly what 
Albert wished to say. From now on Reggie Byng’s 
progress with Lady Maud Marsh was to be the thing 
nearest to Albert’s heart. 


169 . 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


And George meanwhile? Little knowing how fate 
has changed in a flash an ally into an opponent, he is 
standing at the edge of the shrubbery near the castle 
gate. The night is very beautiful; the barked spots 
on his hands and knees are hurting much less now, 
and he is full of long sweet thoughts. He has just 
discovered the extraordinary resemblance, which had 
not struck him as he was climbing up the knotted sheet, 
between his own position and that of the hero of 
Tennyson’s Maud, a poem to which he has always been 
peculiarly addicted, and never more so than during the 
days since he learned the name of the only possible 
girl. When he has not been playing golf, Tennyson’s 
Maud has been his constant companion. 

Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls, 

Come hither, the dances are done. 

In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls. 

Queen lily and rose in one; 

Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls. 

To the flowers, and be their sun. 

The music from the ballroom flows out to him 
through the motionless air. The smell of sweet earth 
and growing things is everywhere. 

Come into the garden, Maud, 

For the black bat, night, has flown. 

Come into the garden, Maud, 

I am here at the gate alone; 

And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad. 

And the musk of the rose is blown. 

He draws a deep breath, misled young man. The 
night is very beautiful. It is near to the dawn now 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


163 


and in the tushes live things are beginning to stir 
and whimper. 

“Maudr^ 

Surely she can hear him? 

“Maud!’^ 

The silver stars looked down dispassionately. This 
sort of thing had no novelty for them. 


XV 


T ORD BELPHER’S twenty-first birthday dawned 
brightly, heralded in by much twittering of spar- 
rows in the ivy outside his bedroom. These Percy did 
not hear, for he was a deep sleeper and had had a 
late night. The first sound that was able to penetrate 
his heavy slumber and rouse him to a realization that 
his birthday had arrived was the piercing cry of Reggie 
Byng on his way to the bathroom across the corridor. 
It was Reggie’s disturbing custom to urge himself on 
to a cold bath with encouraging yells; and the noise 
of this performance, followed by violent splashing and 
a series of sharp howls as the sponge played upon the 
Byng spine, made sleep an impossibility within a radius 
of many yards. Percy sat up in bed and cursed 
Reggie silently. He discovered that he had a head- 
ache. 

Presently the door flew open, and the vocalist 
entered in person, clad in a pink bathrobe and very 
tousled and rosy from his tub. 

‘‘Many happy returns of the day. Boots old thing !” 
- Reggie burst rollickingly into song. He was not 
saddest when he sang. Others were. 

I’m twenty-one to-day. 

Twenty-one to-day! 

I’ve got the key of the door: 

Never been twenty-one before! 

And father says I can do what I like! 

164 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


165 


So shout Hip-hip-hooray! 

Em a jolly good fellow, 

Twenty-one to-day! 

Lord Belpher scowled morosely. 

“I wish you wouldn’t make that infernal noise!” 

‘What infernal noise?” 

“That singing!” 

“This man has wounded me!” said Reggie. 

“I’ve a headache.” 

“I thought you would have, laddie, when I saw you 
getting away with the liquid last night. An X-ray 
photograph of your liver would show something like 
a crumpled oak-leaf studded with hobnails. You 
ought to take more exercise, dear heart. Except for 
sloshing that policeman, you haven’t done anything 
athletic for years.” 

“I wish you wouldn’t harp on that affair !’^ 

Reggie sat down on the bed. 

“Between ourselves, old man,” he said confidentially, 
“I also, I myself, Reginald Byng, in person, was per- 
haps a shade polluted during the evening. I give you 
my honest word that just after dinner I saw three ver- 
sions of your uncle, the bishop, standing in a row side 
by side. I tell you, laddie, that for a moment I thought 
I had strayed into a Bishop’s Beano at Exeter Hall, or 
the Athenaeum, or wherever it is those chappies collect 
in gangs. Then the three bishops sort of congealed 
into one bishop, a trifle blurred about the outlines, 
and I felt relieved. But what convinced me that I had 
emptied a flagon or so too many was a rather rummy 
thing that occurred later on. Have you ever hap- 
pened, during one of these feasts of reason and flows 
of soul, when you were bubbling over with joie de 


166 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


znzre — have you ever happened to see things? What 
I mean to say is, I had a deuced odd experience last 
night I could have sworn tliat one of the waiter- 
chappies was that fellow who knocked off your hat in 
Piccadilly.’^ 

Lord Belpher, who had sunk back onto the pillows 
at Reggie’s entrance and had been listening to his talk 
with only intermittent attention, shot up in bed. 

^What!” 

‘‘Absolutely! My mistake, of course, but there it 
was. The fellow might have been his double.” 

“But you’ve never seen the man !” 

“Oh, yes, I have. I forgot to tell yoh. I met him 
on the links yesterday. I’d gone out there alone, rather 
expecting to have a round with the pro., but finding 
this lad there, I suggested that we might go round 
together. We did eighteen holes, and he licked the 
boots off me. Very hot stuff he was. And after the 
game he took me off to his cottage and gave me a 
drink. He lives at the cottage next door to Platt’s 
farm, so, you observe, it was the identical chappie. 
We got extremely matey. Like brothers. Absolutely I 
So you can understand what a shock it gave me when 
I found what I took to be the same man serving 
bracers to the multitude the same evening. One of 
those nasty jars that cause a fellow’s head to swim 
a bit, don’t you know, and make him lose confidence 
in himself.” 

Lord Belpher did not reply. His brain was whirling. 
So he had been right after all ! 

“You know,” pursued Reggie seriously, “I think 
you are making the bloomer of a lifetime over this hat- 
swatting chappie. You’ve misjudged him. He’s a 
first-rate sort, take it from me! Nobody could have 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


167 


got out of the bunker at the fifteenth hole better than 
he did. If you’ll take my advice you’ll conciliate the 
feller. A really first-class golfer is what you need in 
the family. Besides, even leaving out of the question 
the fact that he can do things with a niblick that I 
didn’t think anybody except a pro. could do, he’s a 
corking good sort. A stout fellow in every respect. 
I took to the chappie. He’s all right! Grab him. 
Boots, before he gets away, that’s my tip to you. 
You’ll never regret it! From first to last this lad 
didn’t foozle a single drive, and his approach-putting 
has to be seen to be believed. Well, got to dress, I 
suppose. Mustn’t waste life’s springtime sitting here 
talking to you. Toodle-oo, laddie. We shall meet 
anon.” 

Lord Belpher leaped from his bed. He was feeling 
worse than ever now, and a glance into the mirror 
told him that he looked rather worse than he felt. 
Late nights and insufficient sleep, added to the need 
of a shave, always made him look like something that 
should have been swept up and taken away to the 
ashbin. And as for his physical condition, talking to 
Reggie Byng never tended to make you feel better 
when you had a headache. Reggie’s manner was not 
soothing, and on this particular morning his choice of 
a topic had been unusually irritating. Lord Belpher 
told himself that he could not understand Reggie. He 
had never been able to make his mind quite clear as 
to the exact relations between the latter and his sister 
Maud, but he had always been under the impression 
that, if they were not actually engaged, they were on 
the verge of becoming so, and it was maddening to 
have to listen to Reggie advocating the claims of a 
rival as if he had no personal interest in the affair at 


168 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


all. Percy felt for his complaisant friend something 
of the annoyance which a householder feels for the 
watchdog whom he finds fraternizing with the burglar. 
Why, Reggie, more than anyone else, ought to be foam- 
ing with rage at the insolence of this American fel- 
low in coming down to Belpher and planting himself 
at the castle gates. Instead of which, on his own 
showing, he appeared to have adopted an attitude to- 
ward him which would have excited remark if adopted 
by David toward Jonathan. He seemed to spend all 
his spare time frolicking with the man on the golf 
links and hobnobbing with him in his house. 

Lord Belpher was thoroughly upset. It was im- 
possible to prove it or to do anything about it now, 
but he was convinced that the fellow had wormed his 
way into the castle in the guise of a waiter. He had 
probably met Maud and plotted further meetings with 
her. 

One thing was certain, the family honor was in his 
hands. Anything that was to be done to keep Maud 
away from the intruder must be done by himself. 
Reggie was hopeless; he was capable, as far as Percy 
could see, of escorting Maud to the fellow’s door in 
his own car and leaving her on the threshold with his 
blessing. As for Lord Marshmoreton, roses and the 
family history took up so much of his time that he 
could not be counted on for anything but moral sup- 
port. He, Perc}^ must do the active work. 

He had just come to this decision when, approach- 
ing the window and gazing down into the grounds, 
he perceived his sister Maud walking rapidly, and — 
so it seemed to him — with a furtive air, down the 
east drive. And it was to the east that Platt’s farm 
and the cottage next door to it lay. 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


169 


At the moment of this discovery Percy was in a 
costume ill adapted for the taking of country walks. 
Reggie’s remarks about his liver had struck home, and 
it had been his intention, by way of a corrective to 
his headache and a general feeling of swollen ill- 
health, to do a little work before his bath with a pair 
of Indian clubs. He had arrayed himself for this 
purpose in an old sweater, a pair of gray-flannel 
trousers and patent-leather evening shoes. It was 
not the garb he would have chosen himself for a 
ramble, but time was flying. Even to put on a pair 
of boots is a matter of minutes; and in another 
moment or two Maud would be out of sight. Percy 
ran downstairs, snatched up a soft shooting hat, which 
proved too late to belong to some person with a head 
two sizes smaller than his own, and raced out into 
the grounds. He was just in time to see Maud dis- 
appearing round the corner of the drive. 

Lord Belpher had never belonged to that virile class 
of the community which considers running a pleasure 
and a pastime. At Oxford, on those occasions when 
the members of his college had turned out on raw 
afternoons to trot along the river bank encouraging 
the college eight with yelling and the swinging of 
police rattles, Percy had always stayed prudently in 
his rooms with tea and buttered toast, thereby avoid- 
ing who knows what colds and coughs. When he 
ran, he ran reluctantly and with a definite object in 
view, such as the catching of a train. He was con- 
sequently not in the best of condition, and the sharp 
sprint, which was imperative at this juncture if he 
was to keep his sister in view, left him spent and pant- 
ing. But he had the reward of reaching the gates of 
the drive not many seconds after Maud, and of seeing 


ITO 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


her walking, more slowly now, down the road that 
led to Platt’s. This confirmation of his suspicions 
enabled him momentarily to forget the blister which 
was forming on the heel of his left foot. He set out 
after her at a good pace. 

The road, after the habit of country roads, wound 
and twisted. The quarry was frequently out of sight, 
and Percy’s anxiety was such that, every time Maud 
vanished, he broke into a gallop. Another hundred 
yards, and the blister no longer consented to be 
ignored. It cried for attention like a little child, and 
was rapidly insinuating itself into a position in the 
scheme of things where it threatened to become the 
center of the world. By the time the third bend in 
the road was reached, it seemed to Percy that this 
blister had become the one great fact in an unreal and 
nightmare-like universe. He hobbled painfully; and 
when he stopped suddenly and darted back into the 
shelter of the hedge his foot seemed aflame. The only 
reason why the blister on his left heel did not at this 
juncture attract his entire attention was that he had 
become aware that there was another of equal pro- 
portions forming on his right heel. 

Percy had stopped and sought cover in the hedge, 
because, as he rounded the bend in the road, he per- 
ceived, before he had time to check his gallop, that 
Maud also had stopped. She was standing in the 
middle of the road, looking over her shoulder, not ten 
yards away. Had she seen him ? It was a point that 
time alone could solve. No! She walked on again. 
She had not seen him. Lord Belpher, by means of a 
notable triumph of mind over matter, forgot the blist- 
ers and hurried after her. 

They had now reached that point in the road where 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


171 


three choices offer themselves to the wayfarer. By 
going straight on he may win through to the village of 
Moresby-in-the-Vale, a charming little place with a 
Norman church; by turning to the left he may visit 
the equally seductive hamlet of Little Weeting; by 
turning to the right off the main road and going down 
a leafy lane he may find himself at the door of Platt’s 
farm. When Maud, reaching the crossroads, suddenly 
swung down the one to the left, Lord Belpher was 
for the moment completely baffled. Reason reasserted 
its sway the next minute, telling him that this was 
but a ruse. Whether or not she had caught sight of 
him, there was no doubt that Maud intended to shake 
off any possible pursuit by taking this speciously in- 
nocent turning and making a detour. She could have 
no possible motive in going to Little Weeting. He 
had never been to Little Weeting in his life, and there 
was no reason to suppose that Maud had either. 

The signpost informed him — a statement strenu- 
ously denied by the twin blisters — that the distance to 
Little Weeting was one and a half miles. Lord 
Belpher’s view of it was that it was nearer fifty. He 
dragged himself wearily along. It was simpler now 
to keep Maud*"in sight, for the road ran straight; but, 
there being a catch to everything in this world, the 
process was also messier. In order to avoid being 
seen, it was necessary for Percy to leave the road and 
tramp along in the deep ditch which ran parallel to it. 
There is nothing half-hearted about these ditches which 
accompany English country roads. They know they 
are intended to be ditches, not mere furrows, and 
they behave as such. The one that sheltered Lord 
Belpher was so deep that only his head and neck pro- 
truded above the level of the road, and so dirty that a 


1T2 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


bare twenty yards of travel was sufficient to coat him 
with mud. Rain, once fallen, is reluctant to leave 
the English ditch. It nestles inside it for weeks, form- 
ing a rich, oatmeallike substance which has to be stirred 
to be believed. Percy stirred it. He churned it. 
He plowed and sloshed through it. The mud stuck 
to him like a brother. 

Nevertheless, being a determined young man, he 
did not give in. Once he lost a shoe, but a little 
searching recovered that. On another occasion a 
passing dog, seeing things going on in the ditch which 
in his opinion should not have been going on — he was 
a high-strung dog unused to coming upon heads mov- 
ing along the road without bodies attached — accom- 
panied Percy for over a quarter of a mile, causing 
him exquisite discomfort by making sudden runs at 
his face. A well-aimed stone settled his little misun- 
derstanding, and Percy proceeded on his journey 
alone. He had Maud well in view when, to his sur- 
prise, she left the road and turned into the gate of a 
house which stood not far from the church. 

Lord Belpher regained the road and remained there, 
a puzzled man. A dreadful thought came to him, that 
he might have had all his trouble and anguish for no 
reason. This house bore the unmistakable stamp of 
a vicarage. Maud could have no reason that was not 
innocent for going there. Had he gone through all 
this merely to see his sister paying a visit to a clergy- 
man? Too late it occurred to him that she might 
quite easily be on visiting terms with the clergy of 
Little Weeting. He had forgotten that he had been 
away at Oxford for many weeks, a period of time in 
which Maud, finding life in the country weigh upon 
her. might easily have interested herself charitably in 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 170 


the life of this village. He paused irresolutely. He 
was baffled. 

Maud, meanwhile, had rung the bell. Ever since, 
looking over her shoulder, she had perceived her 
brother Percy dodging about in the background, her 
active young mind had been busying itself with schemes 
for throwing him off the trail. She must see George 
that morning. She could not wait another day be- 
fore establishing communication between herself and 
Geoffrey. But it was not till she reached Little Weet- 
ing that there occurred to her any plan that promised 
success. 

A trim maid opened the door. 

“Is the vicar in?” 

“No, miss. He went out half an hour back.” 

Maud was as baffled for the moment as her brother 
Percy, now leaning against the vicarage wall in a 
state of advanced exhaustion. 

“Oh, dear I” she said. 

The maid was sympathetic. 

“Mr. Ferguson, the curate, miss, he’s here, if he 
would do.” 

Maud brightened. 

“He would do splendidly. Will you ask him if I 
can see him for a moment.” 

“Very well, miss. What name please?” 

“He won’t know my name. Will you please tell 
him that a lady wishes to see him.” 

“Yes, miss. Won’t you step in?” 

The front door closed behind Maud. She followed 
the maid into the drawing-room. Presently a young, 
small curate entered. He had a willing, benevolent 
face. ' He looked alert and helpful. 

“You wished to see me?” 


174 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


'T am so sorry to trouble you/' said Maud, rocking 
the young man in his tracks with a smile of dazzling 
brilliancy, “but there is a man following me!" 

The curate clicked his tongue indignantly. 

“A rough sort of a tramp kind of man. He has 
been following me for miles and I’m frightened." 

“Brute!" 

“I think he’s outside now. I can’t think what he 
wants. Would you — would you mind being kind 
enough to go and send him away ?" 

The eyes that had settled George’s fate for all 
eternity flashed upon the curate, who blinked. He 
squared his shoulders and drew himself up. He was 
perfectly willing to die for her. 

“If you will wait here," he said, “I will go and send 
him about his business. It is disgraceful that the 
public highways should be rendered unsafe in this 
manner." 

“Thank you ever so much,’’ said Maud gratefully. 
“I can’t help thinking the poor fellow may be a little 
crazy. It seems so odd of him to follow me all the 
way, walking in the ditch too !’’ 

“Walking in the ditch!" 

“Yes. He walked most of the way in the ditch 
at the side of the road. He seemed to prefer it, I 
can’t think why." 

Lord Belpher, leaning against the wall and trying 
to decide whether his right or his left foot hurt him 
the more excruciatingly, became aware that a curate 
was standing before him, regarding him through a 
pair of gold-rimmed pince-nez with a disapproving 
and hostile expression. Lord Belpher returned his 
gaze. Neither was favorably impressed by the other. 
Percy thought he had seen nicer-looking curates, and 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


175 


the curate thought he had seen more prepossessing 
tramps. 

''Come, come!’' said the curate. "This won’t do, 
my man!” 

A few hours earlier Lord Belpher had been startled 
when addressed by George as "sir.” To be called 
"my man” took his breath away completely. 

The gift of seeing ourselves as others see us is, 
as the poet indicates, vouchsafed to few men. Lord 
Belpher, not being one of these fortunates, had not 
the slightest conception how intensely revolting his 
personal appearance was at that moment. The red- 
rimmed eyes, the growth of stubble on the cheeks, 
and the thick coating of mud which had resulted from 
his rambles in the ditch, combined to render him a 
horrifying object. 

"How dare you follow that young lady? I’ve a 
good mind to give you in charge!” 

Percy was outraged. 

"I’m her brother!” He was about to substantiate 
the statement by giving his name, but stopped him- 
self. He had had enough of letting his name come 
out on occasions like the present. When the police- 
man had arrested him in the Haymarket, his first act 
had been to thunder his identity at the man; and the 
policeman, without saying in so many words that he 
disbelieved him, had hinted skepticism by replying 
that he himself was the King of Brixton. "I’m her 
brother!” he repeated thickly. 

The curate’s disapproval deepened. In a sense, we 
are all brothers; but that did not prevent him from 
considering that this mud-stained derelict had made 
an impudent and abominable misstatement of fact' 


176 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


Not unnaturally he came to the conclusion that he had 
to do with a victim of the demon rum. 

‘^You ought to be ashamed of yourself/^ he said 
severely. ‘‘Sad piece of human wreckage as you are, 
you speak like an educated man. Have you no self- 
respect? Do you never search your heart and shud- 
der at the horrible degradation which you have brought 
on yourself by sheer weakness of will?’^ 

He raised his voice. The subject of temperance 
was the one very near to this curate’s heart. The 
vicar himself had complimented him only yesterday on 
the good his sermons against the drink evil were doing 
in the village, and the landlord of the Three Pigeons 
down the road had on several occasions spoken bitter 
things about blighters who came taking the living 
away from honest folks. 

“It is easy enough to stop if you will but use a 
little resolution. You say to yourself, ‘Just one won’t 
hurt me !’ Perhaps not. But can you be content with 
just one? Ah! No, my man, there is no middle way 
for such as you. It must be all or nothing. Stop it 
now, now while you still retain some semblance of 
humanity. Soon it will be too late. Kill that craving ! 
Stifle it! Strangle it! Make up your mind now — 
now — that not another drop of the accursed stuff shall 
pass your lips!” 

The curate paused. He perceived that enthusiasm 
was leading him away from the main issue. 

“A little perseverance,” he concluded rapidly, “and 
you will soon find that cocoa gives you exactly the 
same pleasure. And now will you please be getting 
along. You have frightened the young lady, and she 
cannot continue her walk unless I assure her that you 
have gone away.” 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


17T 


Fatigue, pain, and the annoyance of having to listen 
to this man’s well-meant but ill-judged utterances had 
combined to induce in Percy a condition bordering on 
hysteria. He stamped his foot, and uttered a howl 
-at the blister warned him with a sharp twinge that this 
sort of behavior could not be permitted. 

“Stop talking !” he bellowed. “Stop talking like an 
idiot ! I’m going to stay here till that girl comes out 
if I have to wait all day!” 

The curate regarded Percy thoughtfully. 

Percy was no Hercules; but, then, neither was the 
curate. And in any case, though no Hercules, Percy 
was undeniably an ugly-looking brute. Strategy rather 
than force seemed to the curate to be indicated. He 
paused a while, as one who weighs pros and cons, then 
spoke briskly, with the air of the man who has de- 
cided to yield a point with a good grace. 

“Dear, dear!” he said. “That won’t do! You say 
you are this lady’s brother?” 

“Yes, I do!” 

“Then perhaps you had better come with me into 
the house and we will speak to her.’' 

“All right.” 

“Follow me.” 

Percy followed him. Down the trim gravel walk 
they passed and up the neat stone steps. Maud, peep- 
ing through the curtains, thought herself the victim 
of a monstrous betrayal or equally monstrous blunder. 
But she did not know the Rev. Cyril Ferguson. No 
general, adroitly leading the enemy on by strategic 
retreat, ever had a situation more thoroughly in hand. 
Passing with his companion through the open door, 
he crossed the hall to another door, discreetly closed. 

“Wait in here,” he said. Lord Belpher moved un- 


178 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


suspectingly forward. A hand pressed sharply against 
the small of his back. Behind him a door slamme^ 
and a key clicked — he was trapped. Groping in 
Egyptian darkness, his hands met a coat, then a hat, 
then an umbrella. Then he stumbled over a golf 
club and fell against the wall. It was too dark to see 
anything, but his sense of touch .old him all he needed 
to know. He had been added to the vicar’s collection 
of odds and ends in the closet reserved for such 
things. 

He groped his way to the door and kicked it. He 
did not repeat the performance. His feet were in no 
shape for kicking things. 

Percy’s gallant soul abandoned the struggle. With 
a feeble oath he sat down on a box containing croquet 
implements and gave himself up to thought. 

“You will be quite safe now,” the curate was saying 
in the adjoining room, not without a touch of com- 
placent self-approval such as becomes the victor in a 
battle of wits. “I have locked him in the cupboard. 
He will be quite happy there.” An incorrect state- 
ment, this. “You may now continue your walk in 
perfect safety.” 

“Thank you ever so much,” said Maud. “But I do 
hope he won’t be violent when you let him out.” 

“I shall not let him out,” replied the curate, who, 
though brave, was not rash. “I shall depute the task 
to a worthy fellow named Willis, in whom I have 
every confidence. He — ^he is, in fact, our local black- 
smith !” 

And so it came about that when, after a vigil that 
seemed to last for a lifetime, Percy heard the key 
turn in the lock and burst forth seeking whom he 
might devour, he experienced an almost instant quiet- 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


179 


ing of his excited nervous system. Confronting him 
was a vast man whose muscles, like those of that other 
and more celebrated village blacksmith, were plainly 
as strong as iron bands. 

This man eyed Percy with a chilly eye. 

‘‘Well?’^ he said. ^‘What’s troublin’ you?” 

Percy gulped. The man’s mere appearance was a 
sedative. 

‘'Er — nothing!” he replied. ‘^Nothing!” 

“There better hadn’t be 1” said the man darkly. “Mr. 
Ferguson give me this to give to you. Take it!** 

Percy took it. It was a shilling. 

“And this!” 

The second gift was a small paper pamphlet. It 
was entitled Now’s the Time! and seemed to be a 
story of some kind. At any rate, Percy’s eyes, before 
they began to swim in a manner that prevented steady 
reading, caught the words Roberts had always 
been a hard-drinking man, but one day, as he was 
coming out of the bar parlor ...” He was about 
to hurl it from him when he met the other’s eye 
and desisted. Rarely had Lord Belpher encountered 
a man with a more speaking eye. 

“And now you get along,” said the man. “You pop 
off. And I’m going to watch you do it too. And if 
I find you sneakin’ off to the Three Pigeons ” 

His pause was more eloquent than his speech and 
nearly as eloquent as his eye. Lord Belpher tucked 
the tract into his sweater, pocketed the shilling and 
left the house. For nearly a mile down the well- 
remembered highway he was aware of a presence in his 
rear, but he continued on his way without a glance 
behind. 


180 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


Like one that on|^ a lonely road 
Doth walk in fear and dread : 

And, having once looked back, walks on 
And turns no more his head : 

Because he knows a frightful fiend 
Doth close behind him tread ! 

Maud made her way across the fields to the cottage 
down by Platt’s, Her heart was as light as the breeze 
that ruffled the green hedges. Gayly she tripped to- 
ward the cottage door. Her hand was just raised to 
knock, when from within came the sound of a well- 
known voice. 

She had reached her goal, but her father had an- 
ticipated her. Lord Marshmoreton had selected the 
same moment as herself for paying a call upon George 
Bevan. 

Maud tiptoed away and hurried back to the castle. 
Never before had she so clearly realized what a handi- 
cap an adhesive family can be to a young girl. 


XVI 


A T THE moment of Lord Marshmoreton’s ar- 
^ rival George was reading a letter from Billie 
Dore, which had come by that morning’s post. It 
dealt mainly with the vicissitudes experienced by 
Miss Dore’s friend, Miss Sinclair, in her relations 
with the man Spenser Gray. Spenser Gray, it seemed, 
had been behaving oddly. Ardent toward Miss Sin- 
clair to almost an embarrassing point in the earlier 
stages of their acquaintance he had suddenly cooled; 
at a recent lunch had behaved with a strange aloof- 
ness; and now, at this writing, had vanished alto- 
gether, leaving nothing behind him but an abrupt note 
to the effect that he had been compelled to go abroad, 
and that, much as it was to be regretted, he and she 
would probably never meet again. 

‘'And if,” wrote Miss Dore, justifiably annoyed, 
“after saying all those things to the poor kid and tell- 
ing her she was the only thing in sight, he thinks he 
can just slide off with a ‘Good-by! Good luck! and 
God bless you!’ he’s got another guess coming. And 
that’s not all. He hasn’t gone abroad ! I saw him in 
Piccadilly this afternoon. He saw me, too; and what 
do you think he did? Ducked down a side street, if 
you please! He must have run like a rabbit at that, 
because when I got there he was nowhere to be seen. 
I tell you, George, there’s something funny about all 
this.” 

Having been made once or twice before the con- 

i8i 


182 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


fidant of tlie tempestuous romances of Billie’s friends, 
which always seemed to go wrong somewhere in the 
middle and to die a natural death before arriving at 
any definite point, George was not particularly inter- 
ested, except in so far as the letter afforded rather 
comforting evidence that he was not the only person 
in the world who was having trouble of the kind. He 
skimmed through the rest of it, and had just finished 
when there was a sharp rap at the front door. 

*‘Come in !” called George. 

There entered a sturdy little man of middle age 
whom at first sight George could not place, and yet he 
had the impression that he had seen him before. Then 
he recognized him as the gardener to whom he had 
given the note for Maud that day at the castle. The 
alteration in the man’s costume was what had momen- 
tarily baffled George. When they had met in the rose 
garden the other had been arrayed in untidy gardening 
clothes. Now, presumably in his Sunday suit, it was 
amusing to observe how almost dapper he had become. 
Really you might have passed him in the lane and taken 
him for some neighboring squire. 

George’s heart raced. Your lover is ever optimistic, 
and he could conceive of no errand that could have 
brought this man to his cottage unless he was charged 
with the delivery of a note from Maud. He spared 
a moment from his happiness to congratulate himself 
on having picked such an admirable go-between. Here 
evidently was one of those trusty old retainers you 
read about, faithful, willing, discreet, ready to do 
anything for “the little missy — ^bless her little heart !” 
Probably he had danced Maud on his knee in her 
infancy, and with a doglike affection had watched her 
at her childish sports. George beamed at the honest 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


18 ^ 


fellow, and felt in his pocket to make sure that a suit' 
able tip lay safely therein. 

‘'Good morning,” he said. 

“Good morning,” replied the man. 

A purist might have said that he spoke gruffly and 
without geniality; but that is the beauty of these old 
retainers. They make a point of deliberately trying 
to deceive strangers as to the goldenness of their 
hearts by adopting a forbidding manner. And “Good 
morning!” Not “Good morning, sir!” Sturdy inde- 
pendence, you observe, as befits a free man. 

George closed the door carefully. He glanced into 
the kitchen. Mrs. Platt was not there. All was well. 

“You have brought a note from Lady Maud?” 

The honest fellow’s rather dour expression seemed 
to grow a shade bleaker. 

“If you are alluding to Lady Maud Marsh, my 
daughter,” he replied frostily, “I have not !” 

For the past few days George had been no stranger 
to shocks, and had indeed come almost to regard them 
as part of the normal everyday life; but this latest 
one had a stunning effect. 

“I beg your pardon ?” he said. 

“So you ought to !” replied the earl. 

George swallowed once or twice to relieve a curious 
dryness of the mouth. 

“Are you Lord Marshmoreton ?” 

“I am.” 

“Good Lord!” 

“You seem surprised.” 

“It’s nothing !” muttered George. “At least, you — I 
mean to say — it’s only that there’s a curious re- 
semblance between you and one of your gardeners at 


184 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


the castle. I — I dare say you have noticed it your- 
self.^’ 

''My hobby is gardening.” 

Light broke upon George. "Then was it really 
you ” 

"It was!” 

George sat down. "This opens up a new line of 
thought!” he said. 

Lord Marshmoreton remained standing. He shook 
his head sternly. 

"It won’t do, Mr. I have never heard your 

name.” 

"Bevan,” replied George, rather relieved at being 
able to remember it in the midst of his mental tur- 
moil. 

"It won’t do, Mr. Bevan. It must stop. I allude 
to this absurd entanglement between yourself and my 
daughter. It must stop at once.” 

It seemed to George that such an entanglement could 
hardly be said to have begun, but he did not say so. 

Lord Marshmoreton resumed his remarks. Lady 
Caroline had sent him to the cottage to be stem, and 
his firm resolve to be stern lent his style of speech 
something of the measured solemnity and careful 
phrasing of his occasional orations in the House of 
Lords. 

"I have no wish to be unduly hard upon the in- 
discretions of youth. Youth is the period of romance, 
when the heart rules the head. I myself was once a 
young man.” 

"Well, you’re practically that now,” said George. 

"Eh?” cried Lord Marshmoreton, forgetting the 
thread of his discourse in the shock of pleased sur- 
prise. 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


185 


‘'You don’t look a .day over forty !” 

"Oh, come, come, my boy — I mean, Mr. Bevan!” 

"You don’t, honestly !” 

"I’m forty-eight.” 

"The prime of life!” 

"And you don’t think I look it?” 

"You certainly don’t” 

"Well, well, well! By the way, have you tobacco, 
my boy ? I came out without my pouch.” 

"Just at your elbow. Pretty gcxKi stuff. I bought 
it in the village.” 

"The same I smoke myself !” 

"Quite a coincidence.” 

"Distinctly!” 

"Match?” 

"Thank you, I have one.” 

George filled his own pipe. The thing was becom- 
ing a love feast. 

"What was I saying?” said Lord Marshmoreton, 
blowing a comfortable cloud. "Oh, yes !” He removed 
his pipe from his mouth with a touch of embarrass- 
ment. "Yes, yes, to be sure !” 

There was an awkward silence. 

"You must see for yourself,” said the earl, "how 
impossible it is.” 

George shook his head. 

"I may be slow in grasping a thing, but I’m bound 
to say I can’t see that.” 

Lord Marshmoreton recalled some of the things his 
sister had told him to say. 

"For one thing, what do we know of you? You 
are a perfect stranger.” 

"Well, we’re all getting acquainted pretty quick, 
don’t you think? I met your son in Piccadilly and 


186 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


had a long talk with him, and now you are paying 
me a neighborly visit/’ 

“This was not intended to be a social call.” 

“But it has become one.” 

“And then — that is one point I wish to make, you 
know — ours is an old family. I would like to remind 
you that there were Marshmoretons in Belpher before 
the Wars of the Roses.” 

“There were Bevans in Brooklyn before the 
B. R. T.” 

“I never heard of Brooklyn.” 

“You’ve heard of New York?” 

“Certainly.” 

“New York’s one of the outlying suburbs.” 

Lord Marshmoreton relit his pipe. He had a feeling 
that they were wandering from the point. 

“It is quite impossible!” 

“I can’t see it.” 

“Maud is so young.” 

“Your daughter could not be anything else.” 

“Too young to know her own mind,” pursued Lord 
Marshmoreton, resolutely crushing down a flutter of 
pleasure. There was no doubt that this singularly 
agreeable young man was making things very diffi- 
cult for him. It was disarming to discover that he 
was really capital company, the best, indeed, that the 
earl could remember to have discovered in the more 
recent period of his rather lonely life. 

“At present, of course, she fancies that she is very 
much in love with you. It is absurd!” 

“You needn’t tell me that,” said George. Really, it 
was only the fact that people seemed to go out of 
their way to call at his cottage and tell him that Maud 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


187 


loved him that kept him from feeling his cause per- 
fectly hopeless. “It’s incredible! It’s a miracle!” 

“You are a romantic young man, and you no doubt 
for the moment suppose that you are in love with 
her.’’ 

“No!” George was not going to allow a remark 
like that to pass unchallenged. “You are wrong there. 
As far as I am concerned, there is no question of its 
being momentary or supposititious or anything of that 
kind. I am in love with your daughter. I was from 
the first moment I saw her. I always shall be. She 
is the only girl in the world !” 

“Stuff and nonsense!” 

“Not at all! Absolutely cold fact!” 

“You have known her so little time.” 

“Long enough.” 

Lord Marshmoreton sighed. 

“You are upsetting things terribly.” 

“Things are upsetting me terribly.” 

“You are causing a great deal of trouble and 
annoyance.” 

“So did Romeo.” 

“Eh?” 

“I said, so did Romeo.” 

“I don’t know anything about Romeo.” 

“As far as love is concerned, I begin where he left 
off.” 

“I wish I could persuade you to be sensible.” 

“That’s just what I think I am.” 

“I wish I could get you to see my point of view.” 

“I do see your point of view — ^but dimly. You see, 
my own takes up such a lot of the foreground.” 

There was a pause. 


188 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


'Then I am afraid,” said Lord Marshmoreton, "that 
we must leave matters as they stand.” 

"Until they can be altered for the better,” 

"We will say no more about it now,” 

"Very well.” 

"But I must ask you to understand clearly that I 
shall have to do everything in my power to stop what 
I look on as an unfortunate entanglement.” 

"I understand.” 

"Very well.” 

Lord Marshmoreton coughed. George looked at 
him with some surprise. He had supposed the inter- 
view to be at an end, but the other made no move 
to go. There seemed to be something on the earl’s 
mind. 

"There is — ah — just one other thing,” said Lord 
Marshmoreton. He coughed again. He felt em- 
barrassed. "Just — ^just one other thing,” he repeated. 

The reason for Lord Marshmoreton’s visit to George 
had been twofold. In the first place. Lady Caroline 
had told him to go. That would have been reason 
enough. But what made the visit imperative was an 
unfortunate accident of which he had only that morn- 
ing been made aware. 

It will be remembered that Billie Dore had told 
George that the gardener with whom she had become 
so friendly had taken her name and address with a 
view later on to sending her some of his roses. The 
scrap of paper on which this information had been 
written was now lost. Lord Marshmoreton had been 
hunting for it since breakfast without avail. 

Billie Dore had made a decided impression upon 
Lord Marshmoreton. She belonged to a type which 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


189 


he had never before encountered, and it was one which 
he had found more than agreeable. Her knowledge 
of roses and the proper feeling which she manifested 
toward rose growing as a life work consolidated the 
earl’s liking for her. Never in his memory had he 
come across so sensible and charming a girl; and he 
had looked forward with a singular intensity to meet- 
ing her again. And now some too zealous housemaid, 
tidying up after the irritating manner of her species, 
had destroyed the only clue to her identity. 

It was not for some time after this discovery that 
hope dawned again for Lord Marshmoreton. Only 
after he had given up the search for the missing paper 
as fruitless did he recall that it was in George’s com- 
pany that Billie had first come into his life. Between 
her, then, and himself George was the only link. 

It was primarily for the purpose of getting Billie’s 
name and address from George that he had come to 
the cottage. And now that the moment had arrived 
for touching upon the subject, he felt a little em- 
barrassed. 

‘‘When you visited the castle,” he said — “when you 
visited the castle ” 

“Last Thursday,” said George helpfully. 

“Exactly. When you visited the castle last Thurs- 
day, there was a young lady with you.” 

Not realizing that the subject had been changed, 
George was under the impression that the other had 
shifted his front and was about to attack him from 
another angle. He countered stoutly what seemed 
to him an insinuation : 

“We merely happened to meet at the castle. She 
came there quite independently of me.” 


190 A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


Lord Marshmoreton looked alarmed. 

‘‘You didn’t know her?” he said anxiously. 

“Certainly I knew her. She is an old friend of 
mine. But if you are hinting ” 

“Not at all,” rejoined the earl, profoundly relieved. 
“Not at all. I ask merely because this young lady, 
with whom I had some conversation, was good enough 
to give me her name and address. She, too, happened 
to mistake me for a gardener.” 

“It’s those corduroy trousers,” murmured George 
in extenuation. 

“I have unfortunately lost them.” 

“You can always get another pair.” 

“Eh?” 

“I say you can always get another pair of corduroy 
trousers.” 

“I have not lost my trousers, I have lost the young 
lady’s name and address.” 

“Oh!” 

“I promised to send her some roses. She will be 
expecting them.” 

“That’s odd; I was just reading a letter from her 
when you came in. That must be what she’s referring 
to when she says: Tf you see dadda, the old dear, 
tell him not to forget my roses.’ I read it three times 
and couldn’t make any sense of it. Are you Dadda?” 

The earl smirked. 

“She did address me in the course of our conversa- 
tion as ‘dadda.’ ” 

“Then the message is for you.” 

“A very quaint and charming girl. What is her 
name? And where can I find her?” 

“Her name’s Billie Dore.” 

“Billie?” 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


191 


‘‘Billie/’ 

“Billie!” said Lord Marshmoreton softly. “I had 
better write it down. And her address?” 

“I don’t know her private address. But you could 
always reach her at the Regal Theater.” 

“Ah ! She is on the stage ?” 

“Yes, she’s in my piece, Follow the Girl.” 

“Indeed I Are you a playwright, Mr. Bevan ?” 

“Good Lord, no!” said George, shocked. “I’m a 
composer.” 

“Very interesting. And you met Miss Dore through 
her being in this play of yours?” 

“Oh, no, I knew her before she went on the stage. 
She was a stenographer in a music publisher’s office 
when we first met.” 

“Good gracious! Was she really a stenographer?” 

“Yes. Why?” 

“Oh — ah — nothing, nothing. Something just hap- 
pened to come into my mind.” 

What had happened to come into Lord Marshmore- 
ton’s mind was a fleeting vision of Billie Dore in- 
stalled in Miss Alice Faraday’s place as his secretary. 
With such a helper it would be a pleasure to work on 
that infernal family history which was now such a 
bitter toil. But the daydream passed. He knew per- 
fectly well that he had not the courage to dismiss Alice. 
In the hands of that calm-eyed girl he was as putty. 
She exercised over him the hypnotic spell a lion tamer 
exercises over his little playmates. 

“We have been pals for years,” said George. “Billie 
is one of the best fellows in the world.” 

“A charming girl.” 

“She would give her last nickel to anyone that 
asked for it.” 


19a 


A DAMSEt IN DISTRESS 


“Delightful!” 

“And as straight as a string! No one ever said 
a word against Billie/^ 

^‘She may go out to lunch and supper and all that 
kind of thing, but there’s nothing to that.” 

“Nothing!” agreed the earl warmly. “Girls must 
eat!” 

“They do. You ought to see them 1” 

“A little harmless relaxation after the fatigue of 
the day 1” 

“Exactly. Nothing more.” 

Lord Marshmoreton felt more drawn than ever to 
this sensible young man, sensible, at least, on all 
points but one. It was a pity they could not see eye 
to eye on what was and what was not suitable in the 
matter of the love affairs of the aristocracy. 

“So you are a composer, Mr. Bevan?” 

“Yes.” 

Lord Marshmoreton gave a little sigh. 

“It’s a long time since I went to see a musical per- 
formance — more than twenty years. When I was 
up at Oxford, and for some years afterward, I was a 
great theatergoer. Never used to miss a first night at 
the Gaiety. Those were the days of Nelly Farren and 
Kate Vaughan. Florence St. John too. How ex- 
cellent she was in Faust Up to Date ! But we missed 
Nelly Farren. Meyer Lutz was the Gaiety composer 
then. But a good deal of water has flowed under the 
bridge since those days. I don’t suppose you have 
ever heard of Meyer Lutz?” 

“I don’t think I have.” 

“Johnnie Toole was playing a piece called Partners 
— not a good play. And the Yeomen of the Guard 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


193 


had just been produced at the Savoy. That makes it 
seem a long time ago, doesn't it? Well, I mustn’t 
take up all your time. Good-by, Mr. Bevan. I am 
glad to have had the opportunity of this little talk. 
The Regal Theater I think you said is where your 
piece is playing ? I shall probably be going to London 
shortly. I hope to see it.” Lord Marshmoreton rose. 
*‘As regards that other matter, there is no hope of 
inducing you to see the matter in the right light?” 

“We seem to disagree as to which is the right 
light.” 

“Then there is nothing more to be said. I will be 
perfectly frank with you, Mr. Bevan. I like you.” 

“The feeling is quite mutual.” 

“But I don’t want you as a son-in-law. And, 
dammit!” exploded Lord Marshmoreton, “I won’t 
have you as a son-in-law ! Do you think that you can 
harry and assault my son Percy in the heart of Picca- 
dilly, and generally make yourself a damned nuisance, 
and then settle down here, without an invitation, at 
my very gates and expect to be welcomed into the 
bosom of the family? If I were a young man ” 

“I thought we had agreed that you were a young 
man.” 

“Don’t interrupt me!” 

“I only said ” 

“I heard what you said. Flattery!” 

“Nothing of the kind. Truth.” 

Lord Marshmoreton melted. He smiled. 

“Young idiot!” 

“We agree there all right.” 

Lord Marshmoreton hesitated. Then with a rush he 
unbosomed himself, and made his own position in the 
matter clear. 


194 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


“I know what you’ll be saying to yourself the 
moment my back is turned. You’ll be calling me a 
stage heavy father and an old snob and a number of 
other things. Don’t interrupt me, dammit! You will, 
I tell you! And you’ll be wrong. I don’t think the 
Marshmoretons are fenced off from the rest of the 
world by some sort of divinity. My sister does. Percy 
does. But Percy’s an ass! If ever you find yourself 
thinking differently from my son Percy on any subject, 
congratulate yourself. You’ll be right!” 

“But ” 

“I know what you’re going to say. Let me finish. 
If I were the only person concerned I wouldn’t stand 
in Maud’s way, whoever she wanted to marry, pro- 
vided he was a good fellow and likely to make her 
happy. But I’m not. There’s my sister Caroline. 
There’s a whole crowd of silly, cackling fools — my 
sisters, my cousins, all the whole pack of them! If 
I didn’t oppose Maud in this damned infatuation 
she’s got for you — if I stood by and let her marry 
you — what do you think would happen to me? I’d 
never have a moment’s peace! The whole gabbling 
pack of them would be at me, saying I was to blame. 
There would be arguments, discussions, family coun- 
cils! I hate arguments ! I loathe discussions ! Family 
councils make me sick! I’m a peaceable man and I 
like a quiet life! And, damme. I’m going to have it! 
So there’s the thing for you in letters of one syllable. 
I don’t object to you personally, but I’m not going to 
have you bothering me. I’ll admit freely that since I 
have made your acquaintance I have altered the un- 
favorable opinion I had formed of you from — from 
hearsay ” 

“Exactly the same with me,” said George. “You 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


195 


ought never to believe what people tell you. Every- 
one told me your middle name was Nero, and 
that 

‘'Don’t interrupt me !” 

‘T wasn’t. I was just pointing out 

‘'Be quiet ! I say I have changed my opinion of you 
to a great extent I mention this unofficially, as a 
matter that has no bearing on the main issue ; for as 
regards any idea you may have of inducing me to 
agree to your marrying my daughter, let me tell you 
I am unalterably opposed to any such thing 1’^ 

“Don’t say that.” 

“What the devil do you mean — don’t say that! I 
do say that I It is out of the question. Do you under- 
stand? Very well then. Good morning.” 

The door closed. Lord Marshmoreton walked 
away feeling that he had been commendably stem. 
George filled his pipe and sat smoking. He wondered 
what Maud was doing at that moment. 

Maud at that moment was greeting her brother with 
a bright smile as he limped downstairs after a belated 
shave and change of costume. 

“Oh, Percy dear,” she was saying, “I had quite an 
adventure this morning. An awful tramp followed me 
for miles — such a horrible-looking brute! I was so 
frightened that I had to ask the curate in the next vil- 
lage to drive him away. I did wish I had had you 
there to protect me! Why don’t you come with me 
sometimes when I take a country walk? It really 
isn’t safe for me to be alone!” 


XVII 


T he gift of hiding private emotion and keeping up 
appearances before strangers is not, as many sup- 
pose, entirely a product of our modern civilization. 
Centuries before we were born or thought of there 
was a widely press-agented boy in Sparta, who even 
went so far as to let a fox gnaw his tender young 
stomach without permitting the discomfort insepara- 
ble from such a proceeding to interfere with either his 
facial expression or his flow of small talk. Historians 
have handed it down that, even in the later stages of 
the meal, the polite lad continued to be the life and 
soul of the party. But though this feat may be said to 
have established a record never subsequently lowered, 
there is no doubt that almost every day in modern 
times men and women are performing similar and 
scarcely less impressive miracles of self-restraint. Of 
all the qualities which belong exclusively to man and 
are not shared by the lower animals, this surely is the 
one which marks him off most sharply from the beasts 
of the field. 

Animals care nothing about keeping up appearances. 
Observe Bertram the Bull when things are not going 
just as he could wish. He stamps. He snorts. He 
paws the ground. He throws back his head and bel- 
lows. He is upset, and he doesn’t care who knows it. 
Instances could be readily multiplied. Deposit a 
charge of shot in some outlying section of Thomas the 
Tiger, and note the effect. Irritate Wilfred the Wasp, 
196 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


197 


or stand behind Maud the Mule and prod her with a 
pin. There is not an animal on the list who has even 
a rudimentary sense of the social amenities ; and it is 
this more than anything else which should make us 
proud that we are human beings on a loftier plane of 
development 

In the days which followed Lord Marshmoreton’s 
visit to George at the cottage, not a few of the occu- 
pants of Belpher Castle had their mettle sternly tested 
in this respect ; and it is a pleasure to be able to record 
that not one of them failed to come through the ordeal 
with success. The general public, as represented by 
the uncles, cousins and aunts who had descended on 
the place to help Lord Belpher celebrate his coming of 
age, had not a notion that turmoil lurked behind the 
smooth fronts of at least a half dozen of those whom 
they met in the course of the daily round. 

Lord Belpher, for example, though he limped rather 
painfully, showed nothing of the baffled fury which 
was reducing his weight at the rate of ounces a day. 
His uncle Francis, the bishop, when he tackled him in 
the garden on the subject of intemperance — for Uncle 
Francis, like thousands of others, had taken it for 
granted, on reading the report of the encounter with 
the policeman and Percy’s subsequent arrest, that the 
affair had been the result of a drunken outburst — had 
no inkling of the volcanic emotions that seethed in his 
nephew’s bosom. He came away from the interview, 
indeed, feeling that the boy had listened attentively 
and with a becoming regret, and that there was hope 
for him after all, provided that he fought the impulse. 
He little knew that, but for the conventions, which 
frown on the practice of murdering bishops, Percy 


198 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


would gladly have strangled him with his bare hands 
and jumped upon the remains. 

Lord Belpher’s case, inasmuch as he took himself 
extremely seriously and was not one of those who can 
extract humor even from their own misfortunes, was 
perhaps the hardest which comes under our notice ; but 
his sister Maud was also experiencing mental dis- 
quietude of no mean order. Everything had gone 
wrong with Maud. Barely a mile separated her from 
George, that essential link in her chain of communica- 
tion with Geoffrey Raymond; but so thickly did it 
bristle with obstacles and dangers that it might have 
been a mile of No Man's Land. Twice, since the oc- 
casion when the discovery of Lord Marshmoreton at 
the cottage had caused her to abandon her purpose of 
going in and explaining everything to George, had she 
attempted to make the journey; and each time some 
trifling, maddening accident had brought about failure. 
Once, just as she was starting, her Aunt Augusta had 
insisted on joining her for what she described as ''a 
nice long walk”; and the second time, when she was 
within a bare hundred yards of her objective, some sort 
of a cousin popped out from nowhere and forced his 
loathsome company on her. Foiled in this fashion, she 
had fallen back in desperation on her second line of at- 
tack. She had written a note to George, explaining the 
whole situation in good, clear phrases and begging him 
as a man of proved chivalry to help her. It had taken 
up much of one afternoon, this note, for it was not 
easy to write ; and it had resulted in nothing. She had 
given it to Albert to deliver, and Albert had returned 
empty-handed. 

“The gentleman said there was no answer, m’lady !” 

“No answer ! But there must be an answer !” 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


199 


answer, m’lady. Those was his very words,’* 
stoutly maintained the black-souled boy, who had de- 
stroyed the letter within two minutes after it had been 
handed to him. He had not even bothered to read it. 
A deep, dangerous, dastardly stripling, this, who 
fought to win and only to win. The ticket marked 
“R. Byng” was in his pocket, and in his ruthless heart 
a firm resolve that R. Byng and no other should have 
the benefit of his assistance. 

Maud could not understand it. That is to say, she 
resolutely kept herself from accepting the only explana- 
tion of the episode that seemed possible. In black and 
white she had asked George to go to London and see 
Geoffrey and arrange for the passage — through him- 
self as a sort of clearing house — of letters between 
Geoffrey and herself. She had felt from the first that 
such a request should be made by her in person and 
not through the medium of writing; but surely it was 
incredible that a man like George, who had been 
through so much for her and whose only reason for 
being in the neighborhood was to help her, could have 
coldly refused without even a word. And yet what 
else was she to think? Now more than ever she felt 
alone in a hostile world. Yet to her guests she was 
bright and entertaining. Not one of them had a sus- 
picion that her life was not one of pure sunshine. 

Albert, I am happy to say, was thoroughly miserable. 
The little brute was suffering torments. He was show- 
ering anonymous advice to the lovelorn on Reggie 
Byng — excellent stuff, culled from the pages of weekly 
papers, of which there was a pile in the housekeeper’s 
room, the property of the sentimental lady’s maid — and 


200 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


nothing seemed to come of it. Every day, sometimes 
twice and thrice a day, he would leave on Reggie’s 
dressing table significant notes similar in tone to the 
one which he had placed there on the night of the ball ; 
but for all the effect they appeared to exercise on their 
recipient, they might have been blank pages. The 
choicest quotations from the works of such established 
writers as Aunt Charlotte of Forget-Me-Not, and Doc- 
tor Cupid, the heart expert of Home Chat, expended 
themselves fruitlessly on Reggie. As far as Albert 
could ascertain — and he was one of those boys who as- 
certain practically everything with a radius of miles — 
Reggie positively avoided Maud’s society. And this 
after reading Doctor Cupid’s invaluable tip about 
“Seeking her company on all occasions,” and the dic- 
tum of Aunt Charlotte to the effect that “Many a 
wooer has won his lady by being persistent” — Albert 
spelled it “persistuent,” but the effect is the same — 
“and rendering himself indispensable by constant little 
attentions.” So far from rendering himself indispen- 
sable to Maud by constant little attentions, Reggie, to 
the disgust of his backer and supporter, seemed to 
spend most of his time with Alice Faraday. On three 
separate occasions had Albert been revolted by the sight 
of his protege in close association with the Faraday 
girl, once in a boat on the lake and twice in his gray 
car. It was enough to break a boy’s heart, and it com- 
pletely spoiled Albert’s appetite—a phenomenon at- 
tributed, I am glad to say, in the servants* hall to reac- 
tion from recent excesses. The moment when Keggs, 
the butler, called him a greedy pig, and hoped it would 
be a lesson to him not to stuff himself at all hours with 
stolen cakes, was a bitter moment for Albert. 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


201 

It is a relief to turn from the contemplation of these 
tortured souls to the pleasanter picture presented by 
Lord Marshmoreton. Elere, undeniably, we have a 
man without a secret sorrow, a man at peace with this 
best of all possible worlds. Since his visit to George, 
a second youth seems to have come upon Lord Marsh- 
moreton. He works in his rose garden wdth a new vim, 
singing to himself stray gay snatches of melodies popu- 
lar in the dark ages. 

Hear him now, as he toils. He has a long garden 
implement in his hand, and he is sending up the death 
rate in slug circles with a devastating rapidity. 

Ta-ra-ra boom-de-ay! 

Ta-ra-ra BOOM . . . 

And the ^‘boom^’ is a death knell. As it rings softly 
out on the pleasant spring air, another stout slug has 
made the Great Change. 

It is peculiar, this gayety. It gives one to think. 
Others have noticed it; his lordship’s valet among 
them. 

‘T give you my honest word, Mr. Keggs,” says the 
valet, awed, ‘'this very morning I ’eard the old devil 
a-singin’ in ’is barth, chirrupin’ away like a blooming 
linnet!” 

"Lor !” says Keggs, properly impressed. 

"And only last night ’e give me ’arf a box of cigars 
and said I was a good, faithful feller! I tell you, 
there’s somethin’ happened to the old buster, you mark 
my words!” 


XVIII 

O VER this complex situation the mind of Keggs, 
the butler, played like a searchlight. Keggs was 
a man of discernment and sagacity. He had instinct 
and reasoning power. Instinct told him that Maud, all 
unsuspecting the change that had taken place in Al- 
bert’s attitude toward her romance, would have con- 
tinued to use the boy as a link between herself and 
George; and reason, added to an intimate knowledge 
of Albert, enabled him to see that the latter must in- 
evitably have betrayed her trust. He was prepared to 
bet a hundred pounds that Albert had been given let- 
ters to deliver and had destroyed them. So much was 
clear to Keggs. It only remained to settle on some 
plan of action which would reestablish the broken con- 
nection. Keggs did not conceal a tender heart beneath 
a rugged exterior; he did not mourn over the picture of 
two loving fellow human beings separated by a mis- 
understanding; but he did want to win that sweep- 
stake. 

His position, of course, was delicate. He could not 
go to Maud and beg her to confide in him. Maud 
would not understand his motives, and might leap to 
the not unjustifiable conclusion that he had been at 
the sherry. No, men were easier to handle than 
women. As soon as his duties would permit — and in 
the present crowded condition of the house they were 
arduous — he set out for George’s cottage. 

“I trust I do not disturb or interrupt you, sir,” he 
202 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


203 


said, beaming in the doorway like a benevolent high 
priest. He had doffed his professional manner of 
austere disapproval, as was his custom in moments of 
leisure. 

‘'Not at all,’’ replied George, puzzled. “Was there 
anything ” 

“There was, sir 1” 

“Come along in and sit down.” 

“I would not take the liberty, if it is all the same to 
you, sir. I would prefer to remain standing.” 

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence — un- 
comfortable, that is to say, on the part of George, who 
was wondering if the butler remembered having en- 
gaged him as a waiter only a few nights back. Keggs 
himself was at his ease. Few things ruffled this man. 

“Fine day,” said George. 

“Extremely, sir, but for the rain.” 

“Oh, is it raining?” 

“A sharp downpour, sir.” 

“Good for the crops,” said George. 

“So one would be disposed to imagine, sir.” 

Silence fell again. The rain dripped from the eaves. 

“If I might speak freely, sir?” said Keggs. 

“Sure. Shoot!” 

“I beg your pardon, sir ?” 

“I mean, yes, go ahead 1” 

The butler cleared his throat 

“Might I begin by remarking that your little affair 
of the ’eart, if I may use the expression, is no secret in 
the servants’ ’all ? I ’ave no wish to seem to be taking 
a liberty or to presume, but I should like to intimate 
that the servants’ ’all is aware of the facts.” 

“You don’t have to tell me that,” said George coldly. 
“I know all about the sweepstake 1” 


W4i 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


A flicker of embarrassment passed over the butler^s 
large, smooth face — ^passed and was gone. 

‘T did not know that you ^ad been apprised of that 
little matter, sir. But you will doubtless understand 
and appreciate our point of view. A little sporting 
flutter — nothing more — designed to alleviate the mo- 
notony of life in the country.” 

*‘Oh, don^t apologize!” said George, and was re- 
minded of a point which had exercised him a little 
from time to time since his vigil on the balcony. ‘‘By 
the way, if it isn’t giving away secrets, who drew Plum- 
mer?” 

“Sir?” 

“Which of you drew a man named Plummer in the 
sweep ?” 

“I rather fancy, sir” — Keggs’ brow wrinkled in 
thought — “I rather fancy it was one of the visiting 
gentleman’s gentlemen. I gave the point but slight at- 
tention at the time. I did not fancy Mr. Plummer’s 
chances. It seemed to me that Mr. Plummer was a 
negligible quantity.” 

“Your knowledge of form was sound. Plummer’s 
out!” 

“Indeed, sir! An amiable young gentleman, but 
lacking in many of the essential qualities. Perhaps he 
struck you that way, sir ?” 

“I never met him. Nearly, but not quite!” 

“It entered my mind that you might possibly have 
encountered Mr. Plummer on the night of the ball, 
sir.” 

“Ah! I was wondering if you remembered me!” 

“I remember you perfectly, sir, and it was that fact 
that we had already met in what one might almost term 
a social way that emboldened me to come ’ere to-day 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


205 


and offer you my services as a intermediary, should you 
fell disposed to avail yourself of them.” 

George was puzzled. 

‘^Your services?” 

‘‘Precisely, sir. I fancy I am in a position to lend 
you what might be termed an 'elping ’and.” 

“But that's remarkably altruistic of you, isn't it?” 

“Sir?” 

“I say, that is very generous of you. Aren't you 
forgetting that you drew Mr. Byng?” 

The butler smiled indulgently. 

“You are not quite abreast of the progress of events, 
sir. Since the original drawing of names there 'as been 
a trifling adjustment. The boy Albert now 'as Mr. 
Byng, and I 'ave you, sir. A little amicable re-arrange- 
ment informally conducted in the scullery on the night 
of the ball.” 

“Amicable?” 

“On my part, entirely so.” 

George began to understand certain things that had 
been perplexing to him. 

“Then all this while . . .” 

“Precisely, sir. All this while 'er ladyship, under 
the impression that the boy Albert was devoted to 'er 
cause, has no doubt been placing a misguided con- 
fidence in 'im, the little blighter!” said Keggs, aban- 
doning for a moment his company manners and per- 
mitting vehemence to take the place of polish. “I beg 
your pardon for the expression, sir,” he added grace- 
fully. “It escaped me inadvertently.” 

“You think that Lady Maud gave Albert a letter to 
give to me, and that he destroyed it?” 

“Such, I should imagine, must imdoubtedly have 


^06 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


been the case. The boy ^as no scruples, no scruples 
whatsoever.” 

‘‘Good Lord!” 

‘T appreciate your consternation, sir.” 

“That must be exactly what has happened.” 

“To my way of thinking there is no doubt of it. It 
was for that reason that I ventured to come ’ere — in 
the ’ope that I might be instrumental in arranging a 
meeting.” 

The strong distaste which George had for plotting 
with this overfed menial began to wane. It might be 
undignified, he told himself, but it was undeniably 
practical. And, after all, a man who has plotted with 
page boys has little dignity to lose by plotting with 
butlers. He brightened up. If it meant seeing Maud 
again he was prepared to waive the decencies. 

“What do you suggest?” he said. 

“It being a rainy evening and everyone indoors, 
playing games and what not” — Keggs was amiably 
tolerant of the recreations of the aristocracy — “you 
would experience little chance of a interruption were 
you to proceed to the lane outside the east entrance of 
the castle grounds and wait there. You will find in the 
field at the roadside a small disused barn only a short 
way from the gates, where you would be sheltered 
from the rain. In the meantime, I would inform ’er 
ladyship of your movements, and no doubt it would be 
possible for ’er to slip off.” 

“It sounds all right.” 

“It is all right, sir. The chances of a interruption 
may be said to be reduced to a minimum. Shall we say 
in one hour’s time?” 

“Very well.” 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


‘Then I will wish you good evening, sir. Thank- 
you, sir. I am glad to 'ave been of assistance.^’ 

He withdrew, as he had come, with a large impres- 
siveness. The room seemed very empty without him. 
George, with trembling fingers, began to put on a pair 
of thick boots. 

For some minutes after he had set foot outside the 
door of the cottage George was inclined to revile the 
weather for having played him false. On this eve- 
ning of all evenings, he felt, the elements should, so to 
speak, have rallied round and done their bit. The air 
should have been soft and clear and scented; there 
should have been an afterglow of sunset in the sky to 
light him on his way. Instead, the air was full of that 
peculiar smell of hopeless dampness which comes at 
the end of a wet English day. The sky was leaden. 
The rain hissed down in a steady flow, whispering of 
mud and desolation, making a dreary morass of the 
lane through which he tramped. A curious sense of 
foreboding came upon George. It was as if some voice 
of the night had murmured maliciously in his ear a hint 
of troubles to come. He felt oddly nervous as he en- 
tered the barn. 

The barn was both dark and dismal. In one of the 
dark corners an intermittent dripping betrayed the 
presence of a gap in its ancient roof. A rat scurried 
across the floor. The dripping stopped and began 
again. George struck a match and looked at his watch. 
He was early. Another ten minutes must elapse before 
he could hope for her arrival. He sat down on a 
broken w^gon which lay on its side against one of the 
walls. 

Depression returned. It was impossible to fight 
against it in this beast of a barn. The place was like a 


208 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


sepulchre. No one but a fool of a butler would have 
suggested it as a trysting place. He wondered irritably 
>vhy places like this were allowed to get into this condi- 
tion. If people wanted a barn earnestly enough to take 
the trouble of building one, why was it not worth 
yv^hile to keep the thing in proper repair? Waste and 
futility, that was what it was ! That was what every- 
thing was, if you came down to it. Sitting here, for 
instance, was a futile waste of time. She wouldn't 
come. There were a dozen reasons why she should not 
come. So what was the use of his courting rheumatism 
by waiting in this morgue of dead agricultural ambi- 
tions? None whatever. He went on waiting. 

And what an awful place to expect her to come to 
— if by some miracle she did come — where she would 
be stifled by the smell of moldy hay, damped by rain- 
drops, and — reflected George gloomily, as there was 
another scurry and scutter along the unseen floor — 
gnawed by rats. You could not expect a delicately 
nurtured girl, accustomed to all the comforts of home, 
to be bright and sunny with a platoon of rats crawling 
all over her. 

The gray oblong that was the doorway suddenly 
darkened. 

^‘Mr. Bevan!" 

George sprang up. At the sound of her voice every 
nerve in his body danced in mad exhilaration. He wa§ 
another man. Depression fell from him like a garment. 
He perceived that he had misjudged all sorts of things. 
The evening, for instance, was a splendid evening, not 
one of those awful dry, baking evenings which make 
you feel you can't breathe, but pleasantly moist and 
full of a delightfully musical patter of rain. And the 
barn ! He had been all wrong about the barn ! It was 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


209 


a great little place, comfortable, airy and cheerful. 
What could be more invigorating than that smell of 
hay ? Even the rats, he felt, must be pretty decent rats, 
when you came to know them. 

‘Tm here!’* 

Maud advanced quickly. His eyes had grown ac- 
customed to the murk, and he could see her dimly. 
The smell of her damp raincoat came to him like a 
breath of ozone. He could even see her eyes shining 
in the darkness, so close was she to him. 

“I hope you’ve not been waiting long ?” 

George’s heart was thundering against his ribs. He 
could scarcely speak. He contrived to emit a “No.” 

“I didn’t think at first I could get away. I had 

to ” She broke off with a cry. The rat, fond of 

exercise like all rats, had made another of its excitable 
sprints across the flood. 

A hand clutched nervously at George’s arm, found 
it and held it. And at the touch the last small frag- 
ment of George’s self-control fled from him. The 
world became vague and unreal. There remained of 
it but one solid fact — the fact that Maud was in his 
arms, and that he was saying a number of things very 
rapidly in a voice that seemed to belong to somebody 
he had never met before. 


XIX 


W ITH a shock of dismay so abrupt and overwhelm- 
ing that it was like a physical injury, George 
became aware that something was wrong. Even as he 
gripped her, Maud had stiffened with a sharp cry; and 
now she was struggling, trying to wrench herself free. 
She broke away from him. He could hear her breath- 
ing hard. 

‘‘You — you she gulped. 

“Maud 

“How dare you !” 

There was a pause that seemed to George to stretch 
on and on endlessly. The rain pattered on the leaky 
roof. Somewhere in the distance a dog howled dis- 
mally. The darkness pressed down like a blanket, 
stifling thought. 

“Good night, Mr. Bevan.^’ Her voice was ice. “I 
didn't think you were — that kind of man." 

She was moving toward the door; and, as she 
reached it, George's stupor left him. He came back to 
life with a jerk, shaking from head to foot. All his 
varied emotions had become one emotion, a cold fury. 
“Stop!" 

Maud stopped. Her chin was tilted, and she was 
wasting a baleful glare on the darkness. 

“Well, what is it?" 

Her tone increased George’s wrath. The injustice 
of it made him difezy. At that moment he hated her. 
He was the injured party. It was he, not she, that had 
been deceived and made a fool of. 


210 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


211 


‘T want to say something before you go.” 

“I think we had better say no more about it !” 

By the exercise of supreme self-control George kept 
himself from speaking until he could choose milder 
words than those that rushed to his lips. 

‘T think we will !” he said between his teeth. 

Maud’s anger became tinged with surprise. Now 
that the first shock of the wretched episode was over, 
the calmer half of her mind was endeavoring to soothe 
the infuriated half by urging that George’s behavior 
had been but a momentary lapse, and that a man may 
lose his head for one wild instant and yet remain fun- 
damentally a gentleman and a friend. She had begun 
to remind herself that this man had helped her once in 
trouble, and only a day or two before had actually 
risked his life to save her from embarrassment. When 
she heard him call to her to stop she supposed that his 
better feelings had reasserted themselves ; and she had 
prepared herself to receive with dignity a broken, 
stammered apology. But the voice that had just 
spoken wilh a crisp, biting intensity was not the voice 
of remorse. It was a very angry man, not a penitent 
one, who was commanding — not begging — her to stop 
and listen to him. 

“Well ?” she said again, more coldly this time. She 
was quite unable to understand this attitude of his. 
She was the injured party. It was she, not he, who had 
trusted and been betrayed. 

“I should like to explain.” 

“Please do not apologize.” 

George ground his teeth in the gloom. 

“I haven’t the slightest intention of apologizing. I 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


212 

said I would like to explain. When I have finished ex- 
plaining, you can go.” 

“I shall go when I please,” flared Maud. This man 
was intolerable. 

'There is nothing to be afraid of. There will be no 
repetition of the — incident.” 

Maud was outraged by this monstrous misinterpre- 
tation of her words. 

'T am not afraid!” 

"Then perhaps you will be kind enough to listen. I 
won’t detain you long. My explanation is quite sim- 
ple. I have been made a fool of. I seem to be in the 
position of the tinker in the play whom everybody con- 
spired to delude into the belief that he was a king. 
First a friend of yours, Mr. Byng, came to me and 
told me that you had confided to him .that you loved 
me.” 

Maud gasped. Either this man was mad or Reggie 
Byng was. She chose the politer solution. 

"Reggie Byng must have lost his senses.” 

"So I supposed. At least, I imagined that he must 
be mistaken. But a man in love is an optimistic fool, 
of course, and I had loved you ever since you got into 
my cab that morning ” 

"What 1” 

"So after a while,” proceeded George, ignoring the 
interruption, "I almost persuaded myself that miracles 
could still happen and that what Byng said was true. 
And when your father called on me and told me the 
very same thing, I was convinced. It seemed incredi- 
ble, but I had to believe it. Now it seems that, for 
some inscrutable reason, both Byng and your father 
were making a fool of me. That’s all. Good night.” 

Maud’s reply was the last which George or any man 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


213 

would have expected. There was a moment’s silence, 
and then she burst into a peal of laughter. It was the 
laughter of overstrained nerves, but to George’s ears 
it had the ring of genuine amusement. 

“I’m glad you find my story entertaining,” he said 
dryly. He was convinced now that he loathed this girl, 
and that all he desired was to see her go out of his life 
forever, “Later, no doubt, the funny side of it will 
hit me. Just at present my sense of humor is rather 
dormant.” 

Maud gave a little cry. 

“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry, Mr. Bevan! It wasn’t 
that. It wasn’t that at all. Oh, I am so sorry! I 
don’t know why I laughed. It certainly wasn’t be- 
cause I thought it funny. It’s tragic. There’s been a 
dreadful mistake!” 

“I noticed that,” said George bitterly. The dark- 
ness began to afflict his nerves. “I wish to God we had 
some light.” 

The glare of a pocket torch smote upon him. 

“I brought it to see my way back with,” said Maud 
in a curious small voice. “It’s very dark across the 
fields. I didn’t light it before because I was afraid 
somebody might see.” 

She came toward him, holding the torch over her 
head. The beam showed her face, troubled and sym- 
pathetic; and at the sight all George’s resentment left 
him. There were mysteries here beyond his unravel- 
ing, but of one thing he was certain — this girl was not 
to blame. She was a thoroughbred, as straight as a 
wand. She was pure gold. 

“I came here to tell you everything,” she said. She 
placed the torch on the wagon wheel, so that its ray 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


fell in a pool of light on the ground between them, 
“ril do it now. Only — only it isn’t so easy now. Mr. 
Bevan, there’s a man — there’s a man that father and 
Reggie Byng mistook — they thought — you see, they 
knew it was you I was with that day in the cab, and s6 
they naturally thought, when you came down here, that 
you were the man I had gone to meet that day, the 
man I— I ” 

“The man you love?” 

“Yes,” said Maud in a small voice; and there was 
silence again. 

George could feel nothing but sympathy. It mas- 
tered every other emotion in him, even the gray de- 
spair that had come with her words. He could feel all 
that she was feeling. 

“Tell me all about it,” he said. 

“I met him in Wales last year.” Maud’s voice was 
a whisper. “The family found out, and I was hurried 
back here and have been here ever since. That day 
when I met you I had managed to slip away from 
home. I had found out that he was in London, and I 
was going to meet him. Then I saw Percy, and got 
into your cab. It’s all been a horrible mistake. I’m 
sorry.” 

“I see,” said George thoughtfully. “I see.” His 
heart ached like a living wound. She had told so little, 
and he could guess so much. This unknown man who 
had triumphed seemed to sneer scornfully at him from 
the shadows. 

“I’m sorry,” said Maud again. 

“You mustn’t feel like that. How can I help you? 
That’s the point. What is it you want me to do?” 

“But I can’t ask you now.” 

“Of course you can. Why not?” 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


215 


“Why — oh, I couldn’t.” 

George managed to laugh. It was a laugh that did 
not sound convincing even to himself, but it served. 

“That’s morbid,” he said. “Be sensible! You need 
help, and I may be able to give it. Surely a man isn’t 
barred forever from doing you a service just because 
he happens to love you ? Suppose you were drowning 
and Mr. Plummer was the only swimmer within call, 
wouldn’t you let him rescue you ?” 

“Mr. Plummer? What do you mean?” 

“You’ve not forgotten that I was a reluctant ear- 
witness to his recent proposal of marriage?” 

Maud uttered an exclamation. 

“I never asked! How terrible of me! Were you 
much hurt?” 

“Hurt?” George could not follow her. 

“That night. When you were on the balcony.” 

“Oh !” George understood. “Oh, no, hardly at all. 
A few scratches.” 

“It was a wonderful thing to do,” said Maud, her 
admiration glowing for a man who could treat such a 
leap so lightly. She had always had a private theory 
that Lord Leonard, after performing the same feat, 
had bragged about it for the rest of his life. 

“No, no, nothing,” said George, who had since 
wondered why he had ever made such a to-do about 
climbing up a perfectly stout sheet. 

“It was splendid !” 

George blushed. 

“We are wandering from the main theme,” he said. 
“I want to help you. I came here at enormous expense 
to help you. How can I do it?” 

Maud hesitated. 


216 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


‘T think you may be offended at my asking such a 
thing.’^ 

‘'You needn’t.” 

“You see, the whole trouble is that I can’t get in 
touch with Geoffrey. He’s in London and I’m here. 
And any chance I might have of getting to London 
vanished that day I met you, when Percy saw me in 
Piccadilly.” 

“How did your people find out it was you ?” 

“They asked me straight out.” 

“And you owned up ?” 

“I had to. I couldn’t tell them a direct lie.” 

George thrilled. This was the girl he had had doubts 
of. 

“So then it was worse than ever,” continued Maud. 
“I daren’t risk writing to Geoffrey and having the let- 
ter intercepted. I was wondering — I had the idea al- 
most as soon as I found that you had come here ” 

“You want me to take a letter from you and see 
that it reaches him. And then he can write back to my 
address, and I can smuggle the letter to you?” 

“That’s exactly what I do want; but I almost didn’t 
like to ask.” 

“Why not? I’ll be delighted to do it.” 

“I’m so grateful.” 

“Why, it’s nothing. I thought you were going to 
ask me to look in on your brother and smash another 
of his hats.” 

Maud laughed delightedly. The whole tension of 
the situation had been eased for her. She found her- 
self liking George. Yet she realized with a pang that 
for him there had been no easing of the situation. 
She was sad for George. The Plummers she had con- 
signed to what they declared would be perpetual sor- 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


SIT 

TOW with scarcely a twinge of regret. But George was 
different. 

“Poor Percy I” she said. “I don't suppose he’ll ever 
get over it. He will have other hats, but it won’t be 
the same.” She came back to the subject nearest her 
heart : “Mr. Bevan, I wonder if you would do just a 
little more for me ?” 

“If it isn’t criminal — or, for that matter, if it is.” 

“Could you go to Geoffrey and see him, and tell him 
all about me and — and come back and tell me how he 
looks and what he said and — and so on ?” 

“Certainly. What is his name and where do I find 
him?” 

“I never told you. How stupid of me ! His name is 
Geoffrey Raymond, and he lives with his uncle, Mr. 
Wilbur Raymond, at iia Belgrave Square.” 

“I’ll go to him to-morrow.” 

“Thank you ever so much.” 

George got up. The movement seemed to put him in 
touch once more with the outer world. He noticed 
that the rain had stopped and that stars had climbed 
into the oblong of the doorway. He had an impression 
that he had been in the barn a very long time ; and con- 
firmed this with a glance at his watch, though the 
watch, he felt, understated the facts by the length of 
several centuries. He was abstaining from too close an 
examination of his emotions, from a prudent feeling 
that he was going to suffer soon enough without assist- 
ance from himself. 

“I think you had better be getting back,” he said. 
“It’s rather late. They may be missing you.” 

Maud laughed happily. 

“I don’t mind now what they do. But I suppose 


218 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


dinners must be dressed for, whatever happens/’ 
They moved together to the door. “What a lovely 
night after all! I never thought that rain would stop 
in all this world. It’s like when you’re unhappy and 
think it’s going on forever.” 

“Yes,” said George. 

Maud held out her hand. 

“Good night, Mr. Bevan.” 

“Good night.” 

He wondered if they would be any allusion to the 
earlier passages of their interview. There was none. 
Maud was of the class whose education consists mainly 
of a training in the delicate ignoring of delicate situa- 
tions. 

“Then you will go and see Geoffrey?” 

“To-morrow.” 

“Thank you ever so much.” 

“Not at all.” 

George admired her. The little touch of formality 
which she had contrived to impart to the conversation 
struck just the right note, created just the atmosphere 
which would enable them to part without weighing too 
heavily on the deeper aspect of that parting. 

“You’re a real friend, Mr. Bevan.” 

“Watch me prove it.” 

“Well, I must rush, I suppose. Good night!” 

“Good night!” 

She moved off quickly across the field. Darkness 
covered her. The dog in the distance had begun to 
howl again. He had his troubles too. 


XX 


ROUBLE sharpens the vision. In our moments 
of distress we can see clearly that what is wrong 
with this world of ours is the fact that misery loves 
company and seldom gets it. Toothache is an unpleas- 
ant ailment; but if toothache were a natural condition 
of life, if all mankind were afflicted with toothache at 
birth, we should not notice it. It is the freedom from 
aching teeth of all those with whom we come in con- 
tact that emphasizes the agony. And as with tooth- 
ache so with trouble. Until our private affairs go 
wrong, we never realize how bubbling over with hap- 
piness the bulk of mankind seems to be. Our aching 
heart is apparently nothing but a desert island in an 
ocean of joy. 

George, waking next morning with a heavy heart, 
made this discovery before his day was an hour old. 
The sun was shining and birds sang merrily; but this 
did not disturb him. Nature is ever callous to human 
woes, laughing while we weep, and we grow to take her 
callousness for granted. What jarred upon George 
was the infernal cheerfulness of his fellow men. They 
seemed to be doing it on purpose, triumphing over him, 
glorying in the fact that, however fate might have 
shattered him, they were all right. 

People were happy who had never been happy before 
— Mrs. Platt, for instance. A gray, depressed woman 
of middle age, she had seemed hitherto to have but few 
pleasures beyond breaking dishes and relating the 
219 


220 A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


symptoms of sick neighbors who were not expected to 
live through the week. She now sang. George could 
hear her as she prepared his breakfast in the kitchen. 
At first he had had a hope that she was moaning with 
pain; but this was dispelled when he had finished his 
toilet and proceeded downstairs. The sounds she 
emitted suggested anguish, but the words, when he was 
able to distinguish them, told another story. Incredi- 
ble as it might seem, on this particular morning Mrs. 
Platt had elected to be light-hearted. What she was 
singing sounded like a dirge, but actually it was Stop 
your tickling, Jock! And later, when she brought 
George his coffee and eggs, she spent a full ten minutes 
prattling as he tried to read his paper, pointing out to 
him a number of merry murders and sprightly suicides 
which otherwise he might have missed. The woman 
went out of her way to show him that for her, if not 
for less fortunate people, God this morning was in his 
heaven and all was right with the world. 

Two tramps of supernatural exuberance called at 
the cottage shortly after breakfast to ask George, whom 
they had never even consulted about their marriages, 
to help support their wives and children. Nothing 
could have been more carefree and debonair than the 
demeanor of these men. 

And then Reggie Byng arrived in his gray racing 
car, more cheerful than any of them. Fate could not 
have mocked George more subtly. '‘A sorrow's crown 
of sorrow is remembering happier things"; and the 
sight of Reggie in that room reminded him that on the 
last occasion when they had talked together across 
this same table, it was he who had been in a fool’s 
paradise and Reggie who had borne a weight of care. 


A DAIVISEL IN DISTRESS 


221 


Reggie this morning was brighter than the shining sun 
and gayer than the caroling birds. 

‘^Hullo-ullo-ullo-ullo-ullo-ullo-ul-lol Topping morn- 
ing, isnh it?’’ observed Reggie. “The sunshine! The 
birds! The absolute, what-do-you-call-it of everything 
and so forth, and all that sort of thing, if you know 
what I mean ! I feel like a two-year-old !” 

George groaned in spirit. This was more than man . 
was meant to bear. 

“I say,” continued Reggie, absently reaching out for 
a slice of bread and smearing it with marmalade, “this 
business of marriage, now, and all that species of rot ! 
What I mean to say is, what about it? Not a bad 
scheme, taking it by and large. Or don’t you think 
so?” 

George writhed. The knife twisted in the wound. 
Surely it was bad enough to see a happy man eating 
bread and marmalade without having to listen to him 
talking about marriage. 

“Well anyhow, be that as it may,” said Reggie, bit- 
ing jovially and speaking in a thick but joyous voice, 
“I’m getting married to-day, and chance it. This 
morning, this very morning, I leap off the dock !” 

George was startled out of his despondency. 

“What!” 

“Absolutely, laddie !” 

George remembered the conventions. 

“I congratulate you.” 

“Thanks, old man. And not without reason. I’m 
the luckiest fellow alive. I hardly knew I was alive 
till now.” 

“Isn’t this rather sudden ?” 

Reggie looked a trifle furtive. His manner became 
that of a conspirator. 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


should jolly well say it is sudden 1 It’s got to be 
sudden. Dashed sudden and deuced secret! If the 
mater were to hear of it, there’s no doubt whatever she 
would form a flying wedge and bust up the proceedings 
with no uncertain voice. You see, laddie, it’s Miss 
Faraday I’m marrying, and the mater — dear old soul 
— has other ideas for Reginald. Life’s a rummy 
thing, isn’t it? What I mean to say is, it’s rummy, 
don’t you know, and all that.” 

‘"Very,” agreed George. 

‘‘Who’d have thought, a week ago, that I’d be sitting 
in this jolly old chair asking you to be my best man? 
Why, a week ago I didn’t know you, and if anybody 
had told me Alice Faraday was going to marry me, 
I’d have given one of those hollow, mirthless laughs.” 

‘‘Do you want me to be your best man ?” 

“Absolutely, if you don’t mind. You see,” said 
Reggie confidentially, “it’s like this: I’ve got a lot of 
pals, of course, buzzing about all over London and its 
outskirts who’d be glad enough to rally round and join 
the execution squad; but you know how it is. Their 
maters are all pals of my mater’s, and I don’t want to 
get them into trouble for aiding and abetting my little 
show, if you understand what I mean. Now you’re 
different. You don’t know the m.ater, so it doesn’t 
matter to you if she rolls round and puts the Curse of 
the Byngs on you, and all that sort of thing. Besides, 
I don’t know.” Reggie mused. “Of course this is the 
happiest day of my life,” he proceeded, “and I’m not 
saying it isn’t, but you know how it is — there’s abso- 
lutely no doubt that a chappie does not show at his 
best when he’s being married. What I mean to say is, 
he’s more or less bound to look a fearful ass. And I’m 
perfectly certain it would put me right off my stroke if 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


I felt that some chump Hke Jack Ferris or Ronnie Fitz- 
Gerald was trying not to giggle in the background. So, 
if you will be a sportsman and come and hold my hand 
till the thing’s over, I shall be eternally grateful.’’ 

‘"Where are you going to be married ?” 

"Tn London. Alice sneaked off there last night. It 
was easy, as it happened, because by a bit of luck old 
Marshmoreton had gone to town yesterday morning — 
nobody knows why ; he doesn’t go up to London more 
than a couple of times a year. She’s going to meet me 
at the Savoy, and then the scheme was to toddle round 
to the nearest registrar and request the lad to unleash 
the marriage service. I’m whizzing up in the car, and 
I’m hoping to be able to persuade you to come with 
me. Say the v/ord, laddie!” 

George reflected. He liked Reggie, and there was 
no practical reason in the world why he should not 
give him aid and comfort in this crisis. True, in his 
present frame of mind it would be torture to witness a 
wedding ceremony ; but he ought not to let that stand in 
the way of helping a friend. 

“All right,” he said. 

“Stout fellow 1 I don’t know how to thank you. It 
isn’t putting you out or upsetting your plans, I hope, 
or anything on those lines ?” 

“Not at all. I had to go up to London to-day any- 
way.” 

“Well, you can’t get there quicker than in my car. 
She’s a hummer ! By the way, I forgot to ask — how 
is your little affair coming along? Everything going 
all right?” 

“In a way,” said George. He was not equal to con- 
fiding his troubles to Reggie. 

“Of course your trouble isn’t like mine was. What 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


224 

I mean is, Maud loves you, and all that, and all youVe 
got to think out is a scheme for laying the jolly old 
family a stymie. It’s a pity — almost — that yours isn’t 
a case of having to win the girl, like me; because, by 
Jove, laddie,” said Reggie with solemn emphasis, ‘T 
could help you there. I’ve got the thing down fine. 
I’ve got the infallible dope!” 

George smiled bleakly. 

‘^You have ? You’re a useful fellow to have around. 
I wish you would tell me what it is.” 

“But you don’t need it.” 

“No, of course not, I was forgetting.” 

Reggie looked at his watch. 

“We ought to be shifting in a quarter of an hour or 
so. I don’t want to be late. It appears that there’s a 
catch of some sort in this business of getting married. 
As far as I can make it out, if you roll in after a certain 
hour, the Johnnie in charge of the proceedings gives 
you the miss-in-balk and you have to turn up again the 
next day. However, shall be all right unless we 
have a breakdown, and 're’s not much chance of that. 
I’ve been tuning the olo car up since seven this morn- 
ing, and she’s sound in wind and limb, absolutely. Oil 
— petrol — water — air — nuts — ^bolts — sprockets — car- 
buretor — all present and correct. I’ve been looking 
after them like a lot of baby sisters. . . . Well, as I 
was saying. I’ve got the dope. A week ago I was just 
one of the mugs — didn’t know a thing about it. But 
now — Gaze on me, laddie! You see before you old 
Colonel Romeo, the Man Who Knows! It all started 
on the night of the ball. There was the dickens of a 
big ball, you know, to celebrate old Boots’ coming of 
age — to which, poor devil, he contributed nothing but 
the sunshine of his smile, never having learned to 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


dance. On that occasion a most rummy and extraor- 
dinary thing happened. I got pickled to the eye- 
brows He laughed happily. ‘T don’t mean that that 
was a unique occurrence and so forth, because when I 
was a bachelor it was rather a habit of mine to get a 
trifle submerged every now and again on occasions of 
decent mirth and festivity. But the rummy thing that 
night was that I showed it. Up till then, I’ve been 
told by experts, I was a chappie in whom it was abso- 
lutely impossible to detect the symptoms. You might 
get a bit suspicious if you found I couldn’t move, but 
you could never be certain. On the night of the ball, 
however, I suppose I had been filling the radiator a 
trifle too enthusiastically. You see, I had deliberately 
tried to shove myself more or less below the surface in 
order to get enough nerve to propose to Alice. I don’t 
know what your experience has been, but mine is that 
proposing’s a thing that simply isn’t within the scope 
of a man who isn’t moderately woozled. Well, as I 
was saying, on the night of he ball a most rummy 
thing happened. I thought e of the waiters was 
you !” 

He paused impressively, to allow this startling state- 
ment to sink in. 

‘'And was he ?” said George. 

“Absolutely not! That was the rummy part of it. 
He looked as like you as your twin brother.” 

“I haven’t got a twin brother.” 

“No, I know what you mean; but what I mean to 
say is he looked just like your twin brother would have 
looked if you had had a twin brother. Well, I had a 
word or two with this chappie, and after a brief conver- 
sation it was borne in upon me that I was up to the gills. 
Alice was with me at the time and she noticed it too. 


226 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


Now, you'd have thought that that would have put a 
girl off a fellow, and all that. But no. Nobody could 
have been more sympathetic. And she has confided to 
me since that it was seeing me in my oiled condition 
that really turned the scale. What I mean is, she made 
up her mind to save me from myself. You know how 
some girls are. Angels absolutely! Always on the 
lookout to pluck brands from the burning, and what 
not. You may take it from me that the good seed was 
definitely sown that night." 

‘Ts that your recipe, then? You would advise the 
would-be bridegroom to buy a case of champagne and 
a wedding license and get to work? After that it 
would be all over except sending out the invitations?" 

Reggie shook his head. 

‘‘Not at all. You need a lot more than that. That's 
only the start. You’ve got to follow up the good work, 
you see. That’s where a number of chappies would 
slip up, and I’m pretty certain I should have slipped up 
myself, but for another singularly rummy occurrence. 
Have you ever had a what-do-you-call-it ? What’s the 
word I want ? One of those things fellows get some- 
times." 

“Headaches?" hazarded George. 

“No, no. Nothing like that. I don’t mean anything 
you get — I mean something you if you know what 

I mean." 

“Measles?" 

“Anonymous letter. That’s what I was trying to say. 
It’s a most extraordinary thing, and I can’t understand 
even now where the deuce they came from, but just 
about then I started to get a whole bunch of anonymous 
letters from some chappie unknown who didn’t sign his 
name." 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


“What you mean is that the letters were anony- 
mous,” said George. 

“Absolutely. I used to get two or three a day some- 
times. Whenever I went up to my room Fd find an- 
other waiting for me on the dressing table.” 

“Offensive ?” 

“Eh?” 

“Were the letters offensive? Anonymous letters usu- 
ally are.” 

“These weren’t. Not at all and quite the reverse. 
They contained a series of perfectly topping tips on 
how a fellow should proceed who wants to get hold of 
a girl.” 

“It sounds as though somebody had been teaching 
you jiu jitsti by mail.” 

“They were great! Real red-hot stuff straight from 
the stable. Priceless tips like ‘Make yourself indis- 
pensable to her in little ways,’ ‘Study her tastes,’ and 
so on and so forth. I tell you laddie, I pretty soon 
stopped worrying about who was sending them to me, 
and concentrated the old bean on acting on them. They 
worked like magic. The last one came yesterday 
morning, and it was a topper I It was all about how a 
chappie who was nervous should propose. Technical 
stuff, you know, about holding her hand and telling her 
you’re lonely and being sincere and straightforward 
and letting your heart dictate the rest. Have you ever 
asked for one card when you wanted to fill a royal 
flush and happened to pick out the necessary ace? I 
did once, when I was up at Oxford, and, by Jove, this 
letter gave me just the same thrill. I didn’t hesitate. 
I just sailed in. I was cold sober, but I didn’t worry 
about that. Something told me I couldn’t lose. It 
was like having to hole out a three-inch putt. And . . . 


228 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


well, there you are, don’t you know.” Reggie became 
thoughtful. ''Dash it all! I’d like to know who the 
fellow was who sent me those letters. I’d like to send 
him a wedding present or a bit of the cake or some- 
thing. Though I suppose there won’t be any cake, see- 
ing the thing’s taking place at a registrar’s.” 

"You could buy a bun,” suggested George. 

"Well, I shall never know, I suppose. And now 
how about trickling forth? I say, laddie, you don’t 
object if I sing slightly from time to time during the 
journey? I’m so dashed happy, you know.” 

"Not at all, if it’s not against the traffic regulations.” 

Reggie wandered aimlessly about the room in an 
ecstasy. 

"It’s a rummy thing,” he said meditatively. "I’ve 
just remembered that, when I was at school, I used to 
sing a thing called the what’s-its-name’s wedding song. 
At house suppers, don’t you know, and what not. Jolly 
little thing. I dare say you know it? It starts 'Ding 
dong! Ding dong!’ or words to that effect, 'Hurry 
along! For it is my wedding morning!’ I remember 
you had to stretch out the ‘mor’ a bit. Deuced awk- 
ward, if you hadn’t laid in enough breath. The Yeo- 
man’s Wedding Song. That was it. I knew it was 
some chappie or other’s. And it went on ‘And the 
bride in something or other is doing something I can’t 
recollect.’ Well, what I mean is, now it’s my wedding 
morning! Rummy, when you come to think of it, 
what? . . . Well, as it’s getting tolerably late, what 
about it? Shift-ho?” 

"I’m ready. Would you like me to bring some 
rice?” 

"Thank you, laddie, no. Dashed dangerous stuffr 
rice! Worse than shrapnel. Got your hat? All set?” 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 




*T’m waiting.’' 

‘‘Then let the revels commence,” said Reggie. 
“Ding Dong! Ding Dong! Hurry along! For it is 
my wedding morning ! And the bride. . . . Dash it, 
I wish I could remember what the bride was doing !” 

“Probably writing you a note to say that she’s 
changed her mind and it’s all off !” 

“Oh, my God !” exclaimed Reggie. “Come on !” 


XXI 


M r. and MRS. REGINALD BYNG, seated at a 
table in the corner of the Regent grillroom, 
gazed fondly into each other’s eyes. George, seated at 
the same table but feeling many miles away, watched 
them moodily, fighting to hold off a depression which, 
cured for a while by the exhilaration of the ride in 
Reggie’s racing-car — it had beaten its previous record 
for the trip to London by nearly twenty minutes — now 
threatened to return. The gay scene, the ecstasy of 
Reggie, the more restrained but equally manifest hap- 
piness of his bride, these things induced melancholy in 
George. He had not wished to attend the wedding 
lunch, but the happy pair seemed to be revolted at the 
idea that he should stroll off and get a bite to eat some- 
where else. 

‘‘Stick by us, laddie,” Reggie had said pleadingly, 
“for there is much to discuss, and we need the counsel 

of a man of the world. We are married all right ” 

“Though it didn’t seem legal in that little registrar’s 
office,” put in Alice. 

“But that, as the blighters say in books, is but a be- 
ginning, not an end. We have now to think out the 
most tactful way of letting the news seep through, as 
it were, to the mater.” 

“And Lord Marshmoreton,” said Alice. “Don’t 
forget he has lost his secretary.” 

“And Lord Marshmoreton,” amended Reggie. “And 
about a million other people who’ll be most frightfully 
230 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


231 


peeved at my doing the wedding glide without consult- 
ing them. Stick by us, old top. Join our simple meal, 
and we will discuss many things.” 

The arrival of a waiter with dishes broke up the 
silent communion between husband and wife, and low- 
ered Reggie to a more earthly plane. He refilled the 
glasses from the stout bottle that nestled in the ice- 
bucket — ‘'Only this one, dear !” murmured the bride in 
a warning undertone; and “All right, darling!” replied 
the dutiful groom — and raised his own to his lips. 

“Cheero! Here's to us all! Maddest, merriest day 
of all the glad New Year and so forth. And now,” he 
continued, becoming sternly practical, “about the good 
old sequel and aftermath, so to speak, of this little 
binge of ours. What’s to be done? You’re a brainy 
sort of feller, Bevan old man, and we look to you for 
suggestions. How would you set about breaking the 
news to mother?” 

“Write her a letter,” said George. 

Reggie was profoundly impressed. 

“Didn’t I tell you he would have some devilish 
shrewd scheme?” he said enthusiastically to Alice. 
“Write her a letter! What could be better? Poetry, 
by Gad!” His face clouded. “But what would you 
say in it? That’s a pretty knotty point.” 

“Not at all. Be perfectly frank and straightforward. 
Say you are sorry to go against her wishes ” 

“Wishes,” murmured Reggie, scribbling industrially 
on the back of the marriage license. 

“But you know that all she wants is your happi- 


Reggie looked doubtful. 

“I’m not sure about the last bit, old thing. You 
don’t know the mater !” 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 




“Never mind, Reggie,'^ put in Alice. “Say it, any- 
how. Mr. Bevan is perfectly right.'' 

“Right ho, darling! All right, laddie — ‘happiness.' 
And then?" 

“Point out in a few well-chosen sentences how 
charming Mrs. Byng is " 

“Mrs. Byng!" Reggie smiled fatuously. “I don't 
think I ever heard anything that sounded so indescrib- 
ably ripping. That part'll be easy enough. Besides, 
the mater knows Alice." 

“Lady Caroline has seen me at the castle," said his 
bride doubtfully, “but I shouldn't say she knows me. 
She has hardly spoken a dozen words to me." 

“There," said Reggie earnestly, “you're in luck, dear 
heart! The mater's a great speaker, especially in mo- 
ments of excitement. I'm not looking forward to the 
time when she starts on me. Between ourselves, lad- 
die, and meaning no disrespect to the dear soul, when 
the mater is moved and begins to talk, she uses up 
most of the language." 

“Outspoken, is she?" 

“I should hate to meet the person who could out- 
speak her," said Reggie. 

George sought information on a delicate point. 

“And financially? Does she exercise any authority 
over you in that way?" 

“You mean has the mater the first call on the family 
doubloons?" said Reggie. “Oh, absolutely not! You 
see, when I call her the mater, it's using the word in a 
loose sense, so to speak. She's my stepmother really. 
She has her own little collection of pieces of eight, 
and I have mine. That part's simple enough." 

“Then the whole thing is simple. I don't see what 
you’ve been worrying about." 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


“Just what I keep telling him, Mr. Bevan,'' said 
Alice. 

, “You're a perfectly free agent She has no hold on 
you of any kind." 

Reggie Byng blinked dizzily. 

“Why, now you put it like that," he exclaimed, “I 
can see that I jolly well am! It's an amazing thing, 
you know, habit and all that I I've been so accustomed 
for years to jumping through hoops and shamming 
dead when the mater lifted a little finger, that it abso- 
lutely never occurred to me that I had a soul of my 
own. I give you my honest word I never saw it till 
this moment." 

“And now it's too late!" 

“Eh?" 

George indicated Alice with a gesture. The newly 
made Mrs. Byng smiled. 

“Mr. Bevan means that now you've got to jump 
through hoops and sham dead when I lift a little fin- 
ger!" 

Reggie raised her hand to his lips and nibbled at it 
gently. 

“Blessums 'ittle finger ! It shall lift it and have 'urns 
Reggums jumping through , . He broke off and 
tendered George a manly apology. “Sorry, old top! 
Forgot myself for the moment. Shan't occur again! 
Have another chicken or an eclair or some soup or 
something !" 

Over the cigars Reggie became expansive. 

“Now that you’ve lifted the frightful weight of the 
matter off my mind, dear old lad," he said, puffing 
luxuriously, “I find myself surveying the future in a 
calmer spirit. It seems to me that the best thing to do, 
as regards the mater and everybody else, is simply to 


234 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


prolong the merry wedding trip till Time, the great 
healer, has had a chance to cure the wound. Alice 
wants to put in a week or so in Paris ” 

'Taris !’' murmured the bride ecstatically. 

“Then I would like to trickle southward to the 
Riviera.’' 

“If you mean Monte Carlo, dear,” said his wife with 
gentle firmness, “no !” 

“No, no, not Monte Carlo,” said Reggie hastily, 
“though it’s a great place. Air — scenery — and what 
not ! But Nice and Bordighera and Mentone and other 
fairly ripe resorts. You’d enjoy them. And after 
that — I had a scheme for buying back my yacht, the 
jolly old Siren, and cruising about the Mediterranean 
for a month or so.” Reggie broke, off with a sharp 
exclamation. 

“My sainted aunt !” 

“What’s the matter?” 

Both his companions were looking past him, wide- 
eyed. George occupied the chair that had its back to 
the door, and was unable to see what it was that had 
caused their consternation; but he deduced that some- 
one known to both of them must have entered the 
restaurant; and his first thought, perhaps naturally, 
was that it must be Reggie’s “mater.” Reggie dived 
behind a menu, which he held before him like a shield, 
and his bride, after one quick look, had turned away 
so that her face was hidden. George swung round, 
but the newcomer, whoever he or she was, was now 
seated and indistinguishable from the rest of the 
lunchers. 

“Who is it?” 

Reggie laid down the menu with the air of one who 
after momentary panic rallies. 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


235 


“Don’t know what Fm making such a fuss about/’ 
he said stoutly. “I keep forgetting that none of these 
blighters really matter in the schemes of things. I’ve a 
good mind to go over and pass the time of day.” 

“Don’t!” pleaded his wife. “I feel so guilty.” 

“Who is it?” asked George again. “Your step- 
mother?” 

“Great Scott, no I” said Reggie. “Nothing so bad as 
that. It’s old Marshmoreton I” 

“Lord Marshmoreton I” 

“Absolutely! And looking positively festive.” 

“I feel so awful, Mr. Bevan,” said Alice. “You 
know, I left the castle without a word to anyone, and 
he doesn’t know yet that there won’t be a secretary 
waiting for him when he gets back.” 

Reggie took another look over George’s shoulder, 
and chuckled. 

“It’s all right, darling. Don’t worry. We can nip 
off secretly by the other door. He’s not going to spot 
us. He’s got a girl with him ! The old boy has come 
to life — absolutely! He’s gassing away sixteen to the 
dozen to a frightfully pretty girl with gold hair. If 
you slew the old bean round at an angle of about forty- 
five, Bevan old top, you can see her. Take a look. He 
won’t see you. He’s got his back to us.” 

“Do you call her pretty?” asked Alice disparagingly. 

“Now that I take a good look, precious,” replied 
Reggie with alacrity, “no! Abolutely not! Not my 
style at all.” 

His wife crumbled bread. 

“I think she must know you, Reggie, dear,” she said 
softly. “She’s waving to you.” 

“She’s waving to me,” said George, bringing back 
the sunshine to Reggie’s life and causing the latter’s 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 




face to lose its hunted look. ‘'I know her very well. 
Her name's Dore, Billie Dore." 

‘'Old man/’ said Reggie, “be a good fellow and 
slide over to their table and cover our retreat. I know 
there's nothing to be afraid of really, but I simply can't 
face the old boy." 

“And break the news to him that I've gone, Mr. 
Bevan," added Alice. 

“Very well. I'll say good-by then." 

“Good-by, Mr. Bevan, and thank you ever so much." 

Reggie shook George's hand warmly. 

“Good-by, Bevan old thing, you're a ripper ! I can't 
tell you how bucked I am at the sportsmanlike way 
you've rallied round. I’ll do the same for you one 
of these days. Just hold the old boy in play for a 
minute or two while we leg it. And, if he wants us, 
tell him our address till further notice is Paris. What 
ho! What ho! What ho! Toodleoo, laddie, too- 
dleoo!" 

George threaded his way across the room. Billie 
Dore welcomed him with a friendly smile. The earl, 
who had turned to observe his progress, seemed less 
delighted to see him. His weather-beaten face wore 
an almost furtive look. He reminded George of a 
schoolboy who has been caught in some breach of the 
law. 

“Fancy seeing you here, George!" said Billie. 
“We’re always meeting, aren't we ! How did you come 
to separate yourself from the pigs and chickens? I 
thought you were never going to leave them." 

“I had to run up on business," explained George. 
“How are you, Lord Marshmoreton ?" 

The earl nodded briefly. 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


237 


“So you’re onto him, too?” said Billie. “When did 
you get wise?” 

“Lord Marshmoreton was kind enough to call on 
me the other morning and drop the incognito.” 

“Isn’t dadda the foxiest old thing!” said Billie de- 
lightedly. “Imagine him standing there that day in 
the garden, kidding us along like that! I tell you, 
when they brought me his card last night after the 
first act, and I went down to take a slant at this Lord 
Marshmoreton and found dadda hanging round the 
stage door, you could have knocked me over with a 
whisk broom.” 

“I have not stood at the stage door for twenty-five 
years,” said Lord Marshmoreton sadly. 

“Now, it’s no use your pulling that Henry W. 
Methuselah stuff,” said Billie affectionately. “You 
can’t get away with it. Anyone can see that you’re 
just a kid, can’t they, George?” She indicated the 
blushing earl with a wave of the hand. “Isn’t dadda 
the youngest thing that ever happened?” 

“Exactly what I told him myself.” 

Lord Marshmoreton giggled. There is no other 
verb that describes the sound that proceeded from 
him. 

“I feel young,” he admitted. 

“I wish some of the juveniles in the shows I’ve been 
in,” said Billie, “were as young as you. It’s getting so 
nowadays that one’s thankful if a juvenile has teeth.” 
She glanced across the room. “Your pals are walking 
out on you, George. The people you were lunching 
with,” she explained. “They’re leaving.” 

“That’s all right. I said good-by to them.” He 
looked at Lord Marshmoreton. It seemed a suitable 


238 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


opportunity to break the news. ‘T was lunching with 
Mr. and Mrs. Byng/^ he said. 

Nothing appeared to stir beneath Lord Marshmore- 
ton’s tanned forehead. 

‘‘Reggie Byng and his wife, Lord Marshmoreton,” 
added George. 

This time he secured the earhs interest. Lord 
Marshmoreton started. 

“What!” 

“They are just off to Paris,” said George. 

“Reggie Byng is not married !” 

“Married this morning. I was best man.” 

“Busy little creature 1” interjected Billie. 

“But — ^but ” 

“You know his wife,” said George casually. “She 
was a Miss Faraday. I think she was your secretary.” 

It would have been impossible to deny that Lord 
Marshmoreton showed emotion. His mouth opened 
and he clutched the tablecloth. But just what the 
emotion was George was unable to say till, with a sigh 
that seemed to come from his innermost being, the 
other exclaimed : 

“Thank Heaven!” 

George was surprised. 

“YouTe glad?” 

“Of course Fm glad!” 

“It’s a pity they didn’t know how you were going 
to feel. It would have saved them a lot of anxiety. 
I rather gathered they supposed that the shock was apt 
to darken your whole life.” 

“That girl,” said Lord Marshmoreton vehemently, 
“was driving me crazy ! Always bothering me to come 
and work on that damned family history. Never gave 
me a moment’s peace.” 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


‘T liked her/’ said George. 

"'Nice enough girl,” admitted his lordship grudg- 
ingly; "‘but a damned nuisance about the house. Al- 
ways at me to go on with the family history. As if 
there weren’t better things to do with one’s time than 
writing all day about my infernal fools of ancestors !” 

""Isn’t dadda fractious to-day!” said Billie reprov- 
ingly, giving the earl’s hand a pat. ‘"Quit knocking your 
ancestors! You’re very lucky to have ancestors. I 
wish I had. The Dore family seems to go back about 
as far as the presidency of Willard Filmore, and then 
it kind of gets discouraged and quits cold. Gee! I’d 
like to feel that my great-great-great-grandfather had 
helped Queen Elizabeth with the rent. I’m strong for 
the fine old stately families of England.” 

“Stately old fiddlesticks !” snapped the earl. 

“Did you see his eyes flash then, George? That’s 
what they call aristocratic rage. It’s the fine old spirit 
of the Marshmoretons boiling over.” 

“I noticed it,” said George. ""Just like lightning!” 

“It’s no use trying to fool us, dadda,” said Billie. 
“You know just as well as I do that it makes you feel 
good to think that, every time you cut yourself with 
your safety razor, you bleed blue!” 

“A lot of silly nonsense !” grumbled the earl. 

“What is?” 

“This foolery of titles and aristocracy. Silly fetish 
worship ! One man’s as good as another.” 

“This is the spirit of ’76!” said George approv- 
ingly. 

“Regular I. W. W. stuff,” agreed Billie. “Shake 
hands with the President of the Bolsheviki!” 

Lord Marshmoreton ignored the interruption. 
There was a strange look in his eyes. It was evident? 


240 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


to George watching him with close interest, that here 
was a revelation of the man's soul; that thoughts, 
locked away for years in the other's bosom, were cry- 
ing for utterance. 

‘‘Damned silly nonsense! When I was a boy I 
wanted to be an engine driver. When I was a young 
man I was a Socialist, and hadn't any idea except to 
work for my living and make a name for myself. I 
was going to the colonies — Canada. The fruit farm 
was actually bought — ^bought and paid for!" He 
brooded a moment on that long-lost fruit farm. “My 
father was a younger son. And then my uncle must 
go and break his neck out hunting, and the baby, poor 
little chap, got croup or something, and there we were, 
saddled with the title, and all my plans gone up in 
smoke ! Silly nonsense ! Silly nonsense !" He bit the 
end off a cigar. “And you can't stand up against it," 
he went on ruefully. “It saps you; it's like some 
damned drug. I fought against it as long as I could, 
but it was no use. I'm as big a snob as any of them 
now. I'm afraid to do what I want to do. Always 
thinking of the family dignity. I haven't taken a free 
step for twenty-five years." 

George and Billie exchanged glances. Each had 
the uncomfortable feeling that they were eaves- 
dropping and hearing things not meant to be heard. 
George rose. < 

“I must be getting along now," he said. “I've one 
or two things to do. Glad to have seen you again, 
Billie. Is the show going all right?" 

“Fine. Making money for )ou right along." 

“Good-by, Lord Marshmoreton." 

The earl nodded without speaking. It was not often 
now that he rebelled even in thought against the lot 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 




which fate had thrust upon him, and never in his 
life before had he done so in words. He was still in 
the grip of the strange discontent which had come 
upon him so abruptly. 

There was a silence after George had gone. 

*T'm glad we met George/' said Billie. “He’s a good 
boy!” She spoke soberly. She was conscious of a 
curious feeling of affection for the sturdy, weather- 
tanned little man opposite her. The glimpse she had 
been given of his inner self had somehow made him 
come alive for her. 

“He wants to marry my daughter,” said Lord 
Marshmoreton. 

A few moments before, Billie would undoubtedly 
have replied to such a statement with some jocular 
remark expressing disbelief that the earl could have 
a daughter old enough to be married. But now she 
felt oddly serious and unlike her usual flippant self. 

“Oh 1” was all she could find to say. 

“She wants to marry him.” 

Not for years had Billie Dore felt embarrassed, but 
she felt so now. She judged herself unworthy to be 
the recipient of these very private confidences. 

“Oh I” she said again. 

“He’s a good fellow. I like him. I liked him the 
moment we met. He knew it, too. And I knew he 
liked me.” 

A group of men and girls from a neighboring table 
passed on their way to the door. One of the girls 
nodded to Billie. She returned the nod absently. The 
party moved on. Billie frowned down at the table- 
cloth and drew a pattern on it with a fork. 

“Why don’t you let George marry your daughter. 
Lord Marshmoreton?” 


242 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


The earl drew at his cigar in silence. 

‘T know it’s not my business,” said Billie apologetic- 
ally, interpreting the silence as a rebuff. 

‘'Because I’m the Earl of Marshmoreton.”^ 

‘T see.” 

“No, you don’t,” snapped the earl. “You think I 
mean by that that I think your friend isn’t good enough 
to marry my daughter. You think that I’m an in- 
curable snob. And I’ve no doubt he thinks so, too, 
though I took the trouble to explain my attitude to 
him when we last met. You’re wrong. It isn’t that 
at all. When I say I’m the Earl of Marshmoreton, 
I mean that I’m a poor, spineless fool who’s afraid to 
do the right thing because he daren’t go in the teeth 
of the family.” 

“I don’t understand. What have your family got to 
do with it?” 

“They’d worry the life out of me. I wish you could 
meet my sister Caroline! That’s what they’ve got to 
do with it. Girls in my daughter’s unfortunate posi- 
tion have got to marry position or money.” 

“Well, I don’t know about position, but when it 
comes to money, why George is the fellow that made 
the dollar bill famous. He and Rockefeller have got 
all there is, except the little bit they let Andy Carnegie 
have for car fare.” 

“What do you mean? He told me he worked for 
a living.” 

Billie was becoming herself again. Embarrassment 
had fled. 

“If you call it work. He’s a composer.” 

“I know — writes tunes and things.” 

Billie regarded him compassionately. 

“And I suppose, living out in the woods the way 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


24S 


you do, that you haven't a notion that they pay him 
for it.” 

‘Tay him? Yes, but how much? Composers were 
not rich men in my day.” 

‘T wish you wouldn't talk of your day as if you 
were Noah telling the boys down at the corner store 
about the good times they all had before the flood. 
You're one of the younger set, and don't let me have 
to tell you again. Say, listen, you know that show 
you saw last night — the one where I star, supported 
by a few underlings. Well, George wrote the music 
for that.” 

‘T know. He told me so.” 

‘‘Well, did he tell you that he draws three per of 
the gross receipts? You saw the house we had last 
night. It was a fair average house. We are playing 
to over fourteen thousand dollars a week. George’s lit- 
tle bit of that is — I can’t do it in my head, but it's round 
four hundred dollars. That's eighty pounds of your 
money. And did he tell you that this same show ran 
over a year in New York to big business all the time, 
and that there are three companies on the road now ? 
And did he mention that this is the ninth show he's 
done, and that seven of the others were just as big 
hits as this one? And did he remark in passing that 
he gets royalties on every copy of his music that’s sold, 
and that at least ten of his things have sold over half 
a million? No, he didn’t, because he isn’t the sort of 
fellow who stands around blowing about his income; 
but you know it now.” 

“Why, he's a rich man !” 

“I don’t know what you call rich, but, keeping on 
the safe side, I should say that George pulls down — 


244 A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 

in a good year, during the season — around five thou- 
sand dollars a week.” 

Lord Marshmoreton was frankly staggered. 

‘‘A thousand pounds a week ! I had no idea 1” 

thought you hadn’t. And, while I’m boosting 
George, let me tell you another thing. He’s one of 
the whitest men that ever happened. I know him. 
You can take it from me that, if there's anything 
rotten in a fellow, the show business will bring it out, 
and it hasn’t come out in George yet, so I guess it isn’t 
there. George is all right !” 

‘‘He has at least an excellent advocate.” 

“Oh, I’m strong for George. I wish there were more 
like him. Well, if you think I’ve butted in on your 
private affairs sufficiently, I suppose I ought to be 
moving. We’ve a rehearsal this afternoon.” 

“Let it go!” said Lord Marshmoreton boyishly. 

“Yes, and how quick do you think they would let 
me go, if I did? I’m an honest working girl, and I 
can’t afford to lose jobs.” 

Lord Marshmoreton fiddled with his cigar butt. 

“I could offer you an alternative position, if you 
cared to accept it.” 

Billie looked at him keenly. Other men in similar 
circumstances had made much the same remark to her. 
She was conscious of feeling a little disappointed in 
her new friend. 

“Well?” she said dryly. “Shoot!” 

“You gathered, no doubt, from Mr. Bevan’s con- 
versation, that my secretary has left me and run away 
and got married? Would you like to take her place?” 

It was not easy to disconcert Billie Dore, but she 
was taken aback. She had been expecting something 
different. 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


U5 

“You’re a shriek, dadda!” 

“I am perfectly serious.” 

“Can you see me at a castle?” 

“I can see you perfectly.” Lord Marshmoreton’s 
rather formal manner left him. “Do please accept, 
my dear child. I’ve got to finish this dashed family 
history some time or other. The family expect me to. 
Only yesterday my sister Caroline got me in a corner 
and bored me for half an hour about it. And I simply 
can’t face the prospect of getting another Alice Fara- 
day from an agency. Charming girl, charming girl, 
of course, but — ^but — well. I’ll be damned if I do it, 
and that’s the long and short of it!” 

Billie bubbled over with laughter. 

“Of all the impulsive kids!” she gurgled. “I never 
met anyone like you, dadda! You don’t even know 
that I can use a typewriter.” 

“I do. Mr. Bevan told me you were an expert 
stenographer.” 

“So George has been boosting me, too, has he?” 
she mused. “I must say I’d love to come. The old 
place got me when I saw it that day.” 

“That’s settled then,” said Lord Marshmoreton 
masterfully. “Go to the theater and tell them — tell 
whatever is usual in these cases. And then go home 
and pack, and meet me at Waterloo at six o’clock. The 
train leaves at six-fifteen.” 

“Return of the wanderer, accompanied by dizzy 
blonde ! You’ve certainly got it all fixed, haven’t you ! 
Do you think the family will stand for me?” 

“Damn the family !” said Lord Marshmoreton 
stoutly. 

“There’s one thing,” said Billie complacently, eyeing 
her reflection in the mirror of her vanity case ; “I may 


246 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


glitter in the fighting-top, but it is genuine. When I 
was a kid I was a regular little towhead.” 

‘T never supposed for a moment that it was any- 
thing but genuine.’’ 

“Then you’ve got a fine, unsuspicious nature, dadda, 
and I admire you for it.” 

“Six o’clock at Waterloo,” said the earl. “I will 
be waiting for you.” 

Billie regarded him with affectionate admiration. 

“Boys will be boys,” she said. “All right. I’ll be 
thnre.” 


XXII 


Y oung blighted Albert/' said Keggs, the butler, 
shifting his weight so that it distributed itself 
more comfortably over the creaking chair in which 
he reclined, “let this be a lesson to you, young feller 
me lad !" 

The day was a week after Lord Marshmore ton's 
visit to London, the hour six o'clock. The house- 
keeper's room, in which the upper servants took their 
meals, had emptied. Of the gay company which had 
just finished dinner only Keggs remained, placidly 
digesting. Albert, whose duty it was to wait on the 
upper servants, was moving to and fro, morosely col- 
lecting the plates and glasses. The boy was in no happy 
frame of mind. Throughout dinner the conversation 
at table had dealt almost exclusively with the now 
celebrated elopement of Reggie Byng and his bride, 
and few subjects could have made more painful listen- 
ing to Albert. 

“What’s been the result and what I might call the 
upshot,” said Keggs, continuing his homily; “of all 
your making yourself so busy and thrusting of yourself 
forward and meddling in the affairs of your elders 
and betters? The upshot and issue of it ’as been 
that you are out five shillings and nothing to show 
for it. Five shillings what you might have spent on 
some good book and improved your mind ! And good- 
ness knows it wants all the improving it can get, for 
of all the worthless, idle little messers it’s ever been 
247 


248 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


my misfortune to ’ave dealings with, you are the 
champion. Be careful of them plates, young man, and 
don't breathe so 'ard. You ’aven't got hasthma or 
something, 'ave you?” 

*T can't breathe nowl”^ complained the stricken 
child. 

‘'Not like a grampus you can't, and don't you forget 
it!” Keggs wagged his head reprovingly. “Well, so 
your Reggie Byng's gone and eloped, has he! That 
ought to teach you to be more careful another time 'ow 
you go gambling and plunging into sweepstakes. The 
idea of a child of your age 'aving the audacity to 
thrust 'isself forward like that!'' 

“Don't call him my Reggie B3mgl I didn't draw 
'im!'' 

“There's no need to go into all that again, young 
feller. You accepted 'im freely and without prejudice 
when the fair exchange was suggested, so for all 
practical intents and purposes he is your Reggie Byng. 
I 'ope you're going to send him a wedding present." 

“Well, you ain’t any better off than me, with all 
your 'ighway robbery !" 

“My what?" 

“You 'eard what I said." 

“Well, don’t let me 'ear you say it again. The idea! 
If you 'ad any objections to parting with that ticket, 
you should have stated them clearly at the time. And 
what do you mean by saying I ain’t any better off than 
you are?" 

“I 'ave my reasons." 

“You think you 'ave, which is a very different thing. 
I suppose you imagine that you've put a stopper on a 
certain little affair by surreptitiously destroying letters 
intrusted to you.” 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS M9 


‘T never !’^ exclaimed Albert with a convulsive start 
that nearly sent eleven plates dashing to destruction, 

'‘’Ow many times have I got to tell you to be care- 
ful of them plates?’^ said Keggs sternly. “Who do 
you think you are, a juggler on the ’alls, ’urling them 
about like that? Yes, I know all about that letter. 
You thought you was very clever, Fve no doubt. But 
let me tell you, young blighted Albert, that only the 
other evening ’er ladyship and Mr. Bevan ’ad a long 
and extended interview in spite of all your hefforts. I 
saw through your little game, and I proceeded and 
went and arranged the meeting.” 

In spite of himself Albert was awed. He was op- 
pressed by the sense of struggling with a superior in- 
tellect. 

“Yes, you did !” he managed to say with the proper 
note of incredulity, but in his heart he was not in- 
credulous. Dimly Albert had begun to perceive that 
years must elapse before he could become capable of 
matching himself in battles of the wits with this master 
strategist. 

“Yes, I certainly did!” said Keggs. “I don’t know 
what ’appened at the interview, not being present in 
person. But I’ve no doubt that everything proceeded 
satisfactorily.” 

“And a fat lot of good that’s going to do you, when 
’e ain’t allowed to come inside the ’ouse !” 

A bland smile irradiated the butler’s moonlike face. 

“If by ’e you’re alloodin’ to Mr. Bevan, young 
blighted Albert, let me tell you that it won’t be long 
before ’e becomes a regular duly invited guest at the 
castle!” 

“A lot of chance!” 


250 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


'‘Would you care to ’ave another five shillings, even 
money, on it 

Albert recoiled. He had had enough of speculation 
Avhere the butler was concerned. Where that schemer 
was allowed to get within reach of it hard cash melted 
away. 

“What are you going to do?” 

“Never you mind what Fm going to do. I ’ave my 
methods. All I say to you is that to-morrow or the 
day after Mr. Bevan will be seated in our dining ’all 
with ’is feet under our table, replying according to his 
personal taste and preference when I ask ’im if ’e’ll 
’ave ’ock or sherry. Brush all them crumbs carefully 
off the tablecloth, young blighted Albert, don’t shuffle 
your feet, breathe softly through your nose, and close 
the door be’ind you when you’ve finished!” 

“Oh, go and eat coke!” said Albert bitterly. But 
he said it to his immortal soul, not aloud. The lad’s 
spirit was broken. 

Keggs, the processes of digestion completed, pre- 
sented himself before Lord Belpher in the billiard 
room. Percy was alone. The house party, so numer- 
ous on the night of the ball and on his birthday, had 
melted down now to reasonable proportions. The 
second and third cousins had retired, flushed and 
gratified, to the obscure dens from which they had 
emerged, and the castle housed only the more promi- 
nent members of the family, always harder to dislodge 
than the small fry. 

“Might I have a word with your lordship?” 

“What is it, Keggs?” 

Keggs was a self-possessed man, but he found it a 
little hard to begin. Then he remembered that once 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


251 


in the misty past he had seen Lord Belpher spanked 
for stealing jam, he himself having acted on that oc- 
casion as prosecuting attorney ; and the memory nerved 
him. 

‘T earnestly ’ope that your lordship will not think 
that I am taking a liberty. I ’ave been in his lordship 
your father’s service many years now, and the family 
honor is, if I may be pardoned for saying so, extremely 
near my ’eart. I ’ave known your lordship since you 
were a mere boy, and ” 

Lord Belpher had listened with growing impatience 
to this preamble. His temper was seldom at its best 
these days, and the rolling periods annoyed him. 

“Yes, yes, of course,” he said. “What is it?” 

Keggs was himself now. In his opening remarks 
he had simply been, as it were, winding up, like a 
pitcher. He was now prepared to put a few over the 
plate. 

“Your lordship will recall inquiring of me on the 
night of the ball as to the hona fides of one of the 
temporary waiters — the one that stated that ’e was the 
cousin of young bli — of the boy Albert, the page? I 
have been making inquiries, your lordship, and I regret 
to say find that the man was a imposter. He informed 
me that he was Albert’s cousin, but Albert now in- 
forms me that ’e has no cousin in America. I am ex- 
tremely sorry that this should have occurred, your 
lordship, and I ’ope you will attribute it to the bustle 
and hustle inseparable from duties such as mine on 
such a occasion.” 

Lord Belpher nodded curtly. 

“I know the fellow was an imposter. He was prob- 
ably after the spoons!” 

Keggs coughed. 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


252 

“If I might be allowed to take a further liberty, 
your lordship, might I suggest that I am aware of 
the man’s identity and of his motive for visiting the 
castle.” 

He waited a little apprehensively. This was the 
crucial point in the interview. If Lord Belpher did not 
now freeze him with a glance and order him from 
the room, the danger would be past, and he could 
speak freely. His light-blue eyes were expressionless 
as they met Percy’s, but inwardly he was feeling much 
the same sensation as he was wont to experience when 
the family was in town and he had managed to slip 
off to Kempton Park or some other race course and 
put some of his savings on a horse. As he felt when 
the racing steeds thundered down the straight, so 
did he feel now. 

Astonishment showed in Lord Belpher’s round face. 
Just as it was about to be succeeded by indignation, 
the butler spoke again. 

“I am aware, your lordship, that it is not my place 
to offer suggestions as to the private and intimate af- 
fairs of the family I ’ave the honor to serve, but, if 
your lordship would consent to overlook the liberty, 
I think I could be of ’elp and assistance in a matter 
which is causing annoyance and unpleasantness to 
all.” 

He invigorated himself with another dip into the 
waters of memory. Yes! The young man before 
him might be Lord Belpher, son of his employer and 
heir to all these great estates, but once he had seen him 
spanked. 

Perhaps Percy also remembered this. Perhaps he 
merely felt that Keggs was a faithful old servant, and 
as such entitled to thrust himself into the family af- 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


253 


fairs. Whatever his reasons, he now definitely lowered 
the barrier. 

“Well?’' he said, with a glance at the door to make 
sure that there were no witnesses to an act of which 
the aristocrat in him disapproved. “Go on !” 

Keggs breathed freely. The danger point was 
passed. 

“’Aving a natural interest, your lordship,” he said, 
“we of the servants’ ’all generally manage to become 
respectfully aware of whatever ’appens to be trans- 
piring abovestairs. May I say that I become acquainted 
at an early stage with the trouble which your lordship 
is unfortunately ’aving with a certain party.” 

Lord Belpher, although his whole being revolted 
against what practically amounted to hobnobbing with 
a butler, perceived that he had committed himself to 
the discussion. It revolted him to think that these 
delicate family secrets were the subject of conversa- 
tion in menial circles, but it was too late to do anything 
now. And such was the whole-heartedness with which 
he had declared war upon George Bevan that, at this 
stage in the proceedings, his chief emotion was a hope 
that Keggs might have something sensible to suggest. 

“I think, begging your lordship’s pardon for making 
the remark, that you are acting injudicious. I ’ave 
been in service a great number of years, startin’ as 
steward’s-room boy and rising to my present position, 
and I may say I ’ave had experience during those years 
of several cases where the daughter or son of the ’ouse 
contemplated a misalliance, and all but one of the cases 
ended disastrously, your lordship, on account of the 
family trying opposition. It is my experience that 
opposition in matters of the ’eart is useless, feeding, 
as it so to speak does, the flame. Young people, your 


254 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


lordship, if I may be pardoned for employing the ex- 
pression in the present case, are naturally romantic, 
and if you keep ’em away from a thing they sit and 
pity themselves and want it all the more. And in the 
end you may be sure they get it. There’s no way of 
stoppin’ them. I was not on sufficiently easy terms 
with the late Lord Worlingham to give ’im the benefit 
of my experience on the occasion when the Honorable 
Aubrey Pershore fell in love with the young person 
at the Gaiety Theater. Otherwise I could have told 
’im he was not acting judicious. His lordship op- 
posed the match in every way, and the young couple 
ran off and got married at a registrar’s. It was the 
same when a young man who was tutor to ’er lady- 
ship’s brother attracted Lady Evelyn Walls, the only 
daughter of the Earl of Ackleton. In fact, your lord- 
ship, the only entanglement of the kind that came to a 
satisfactory conclusion in the whole of my personal 
experience was the affair of Lady Catherine Duseby, 
Lord Bridgefield’s daughter, who injudiciously became 
infatuated with a roller-skating instructor.” 

Lord Belpher had ceased to feel distantly superior 
to his companion. The butler’s powerful personality 
hypnotized him. Long ere the harangue was ended, 
he was as a little child drinking in the utterances of 
a master. He bent forward eagerly. Keggs had 
broken off his remarks at the most interesting point. 

‘‘What happened ?” inquired Percy. 

“The young man,” proceeded Keggs, “was a young 
man of considerable personal attractions, ’avin’ large 
brown eyes and a athletic, lissome figure, brought about 
by roller skating. It was no wonder, in the opinion 
of the servants’ ’all, that ’er ladyship should have found 
’erself fascinated by him, particularly as I myself ’ad 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


S55 


’card her observe at a full luncheon table that roller 
skating was in her opinion the only thing, except her 
toy Pomeranian, that made life worth living. But 
when she announced that she had become engaged to 
this young man, there was the greatest consternation. 
I was not, of course, privileged to be a participant at 
the many councils and discussions that ensued and 
took place, but I was aware that such transpired with 
great frequency. Eventually ’is lordship took the 
shrewd step of assuming acquiescence and inviting the 
young man to visit us in Scotland. And within ten 
days of ’is arrival, your lordship, the match was broken 
off. He went back to ’is roller skating, and ’er lady- 
ship took up visiting the poor and eventually contracted 
an altogether suitable alliance by marrying Lord Ron- 
ald Spofforth, the second son of His Grace the Duke 
of Gorbals and Strathbungo.” 

“How did it happen?” 

“Seein’ the young man in the surroundings of ’er 
own ’ome, ’er ladyship soon began to see that she had 
taken too romantic a view of ’im previous, your lord- 
ship. ’E was one of the lower middle class, what is 
sometimes termed the bourjoisy, and ’is ’abits were not 
the ’abits of the class to which ’er ladyship belonged. 
’E ’ad nothing in common with the rest of the ’ouse 
party, and was injudicious in ’is choice of forks. The 
very first night at dinner ’e took a steel knife to the 
ontray, and I see ’er ladyship look at him very sharp, 
as much as to say the scales had fallen from ’er eyes. 
It didn’t take ’er long after that to become convinced 
that ’er ’eart ’ad led ’er astray.” 

“Then you think ” 

“It is not for me to presume to offer anything but 
the most respectful advice, your lordship, but I should 


256 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


most certainly advocate a similar procedure in the pres- 
ent instance.” 

Lord Belpher reflected. Recent events had brought 
home to him the magnitude of the task he had assumed 
when he had appointed himself the watcher of his sis- 
ter’s movements. The affair of the curate and the 
village blacksmith had shaken him both physically and 
spiritually. His feet were still sore, and his confidence 
in himself had waned considerably. The thought of 
having to continue his espionage indefinitely was not 
a pleasant one. How much simpler and more effective 
it would be to adopt the suggestion which had been 
offered to him. 

‘T’m not sure you aren’t right, Keggs.” 

‘Thank you, your lordship. I feel convinced of 
it.” 

“I will speak to my father to-night.” 

“Very good, your lordship. I am glad to have been 
of service.” 

“Young blighted Albert,” said Keggs crisply, shortly 
after breakfast on the following morning, “you’re to 
take this note to Mr. Bevan at the cottage down by 
Platt’s farm, and you’re to deliver it without playing 
any of your monkey tricks, and you’re to wait for an 
answer, and you’re to bring that answer back to me 
to ’and to Lord Marshmoreton. And I may tell you, 
to save you the trouble of opening it with steam from 
the kitchen kettle, that I ’ave already done so. It’s an 
invitation to dine with us to-night. So now you know. 
Look slippy!” 

Albert capitulated. For the first time in his life he 
felt humble. He perceived how misguided he had 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


257 


been ever to suppose that he could pit his pigmy wits 
against this smooth-faced worker of wonders. 

‘‘Crikey !” he ejaculated. 

It was all that he could say. 

“And there's one more thing, young fellow me lad," 
added Keggs warningly, “don’t you ever grow up to be 
such a fat’ead as our friend Percy. Don’t forget I 
told you." 


XXIII 


L ife is like some crazy machine that is always going 
either too slow or too fast. From the cradle to 
the grave we alternate between the Sargasso Sea and 
the rapids, forever either becalmed or stormtossed. It 
seemed to Maud, as she looked across the dinner-table 
in order to make sure for the twentieth time that it 
really was George Bevan who sat opposite her, that, 
after months in which nothing whatever had happened, 
she was now living through a period when everything 
was happening at once. Life, from being a broken- 
down machine, had suddenly begun to race. 

To the orderly routine that stretched back to the 
time when she had been hurried home in disgrace from 
Wales, there had succeeded a mad whirl of events, to 
which the miracle of to-night had come as a fitting 
climax. She had not begun to dress for dinner till 
somewhat late, and had consequently entered the 
drawing-room just as Keggs was announcing that the 
meal was ready. She had received her first shock 
when the lovesick Plummer, emerging from a mixed 
crowd of relatives and friends, had informed her that 
he was to take her in. She had not expected Plummer 
to be there, though he lived in the neighborhood. Plum- 
mer at their last meeting had stated his intention of 
going abroad for a bit to mend his bruised heart, and 
it was a little disconcerting to a sensitive girl to find 
her victim popping up again like this. She did not 
know that, as far as Plummer was concerned, the 
258 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


259 


whole affair was to be considered opened again. 

To Plummer, analysing the girl’s motives in re- 
fusing him, there had come the idea that there was 
another, and that this other must be Reggie Byng. 
From the first he had always looked upon Reggie as 
his worst rival. And now Reggie had bolted with the 
Faraday girl, leaving Maud in excellent condition, so 
it seemed to Plummer, to console herself with a 
worthier man. Plummer knew all about the rebound 
and the part it plays in affairs of the heart. His own 
breach-0 f -promise case two years earlier had been en- 
tirely due to the fact that the refusal of the youngest 
Devenish girl to marry him had caused him to rebound 
into the dangerous society of the second girl from the 
O. P. end of the first row in the Summertime is Kiss- 
ing Time number in the Alhambra revue. He had 
come to the castle to-night gloomy, but not without 
hope. 

Maud’s second shock eclipsed the first entirely. No 
notification had been given to her either by her father 
or by Percy of the proposed extension of the hand of 
hospitality to George, and the sight of him standing 
there talking to her aunt Caroline made her momentar- 
ily dizzy. Life, which for several days had had all the 
properties now of a dream, now of a nightmare, be- 
came more unreal than ever. She could conceive no 
explanation of George’s presence. He could not be 
there, that was all there was to it ; yet there undoubtedly 
he was. Her manner, as she accompanied Plummer 
down the stairs, took on such a dazed sweetness that 
her escort felt that in coming there that night he had 
done. the wisest act of a lifetime studded but sparsely 
with wise acts. It seemed to Plummer that this girl 
had softened toward him. Certainly something had 


S60 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


changed her. He could not know that she was merely 
wondering if she was awake. 

George, meanwhile, across the table, was also having 
a little difficulty in adjusting his faculties to the prog- 
ress of events. He had given up trying to imagine 
why he had been invited to this dinner, and was now 
endeavoring to find some theory which would square 
with the fact of Billie Dore being at the castle. At 
precisely this hour Billie, by rights, should have been 
putting the finishing touches on her make-up in a sec- 
ond-floor dressing room at the Regal. Yet there she 
sat, very much at her ease in this aristocratic company, 
so quietly and unobtrusively dressed in some black 
stuff that at first he had scarcely recognized her. She 
was talking to the Bishop. 

The voice of Keggs at his elbow broke in on his 
reverie. 

“Sherry or ’ock, sir 

George could not have explained why this reminder 
of the butler’s presence should have made him feel 
better, but it did. There was something solid and 
tranquillizing about Keggs. He had noticed it before. 
For the first time the sensation of having been smitten 
Over the head with some blunt instrument began to 
abate. It was as if Keggs by the mere intonation of 
his voice had said : 

“ ‘All this no doubt seems very strange and unusual 
to you, but feel no alarm ! I am here !’ ” 

George began to sit up and take notice. A cloud 
seemed to have cleared from his brain. He found him- 
self looking on his fellow diners as individuals rather 
than as a confused mass. The prophet Daniel, after 
the initial embarrassment of finding himself in the 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


S61 


society of the lions had passed away, must have ex- 
perienced a somewhat similar sensation. 

He began to sort these people out and label them. 
There had been introductions in the drawing-room, 
but they had merely left him with a bewildered sense 
of having heard somebody recite a page from Burke’s 
peerage. Not since that day in the free library in 
London, when he had dived into that fascinating 
volume in order to discover Maud’s identity, had he 
undergone such a rain of titles. He now took stock, 
to ascertain how many of these people he could 
identify. 

The stock taking was an absolute failure. Of all 
those present the only individuals he could swear to 
were his own personal little playmates with whom he 
had sported in other surroundings. There was Lord 
Belpher, for instance, eyeing him with a hostility that 
could hardly be called veiled. There was Lord Marsh- 
moreton at the head of the table, listening glumly to 
tlie conversation of a stout woman with a pearl neck- 
lace. But who was the woman? Was it Lady Jane 
Allenby or Lady Edith Wade-Beverly or Lady Patricia 
Fowles? And who, above all, was the pie-faced fellow 
with the mustache talking to Maud ? 

He sought assistance from the girl he had taken in 
to dinner. She appeared, as far as he could ascertain 
from a short acquaintance, to be an amiable little thing. 
She was small and young and fluffy, and he had caught 
enough of her name at the moment of introduction 
to gather that she was plain 'Miss’ Something, a fact 
which seemed to him to draw them together. “I wish 
you would tell me who some of these people are,” he 
said, as she turned from talking to thp man on her 
other side. "Who is the man over there?” 


^62 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


^‘Which man?’^ 

'The one talking to Lady Maud. The fellow whose 
face ought to be shufUed and dealt again.’^ 

'That’s my brother.” 

That held George during the soup. 

"I’m sorry about your brother,” he said, rallying 
with the fish. 

"That’s very sweet of you.” 

"It was the light that deceived me. Now that I loot 
again, I see that his face has great charm.” 

The girl giggled. George began to feel better. 

"Who are some of the others? I didn’t get your 
name, for instance. They shot it at me so quick that 
it had whizzed by before I could catch it.” 

"My name is Plummer.” 

George was electrified. He looked across the table 
with more vivid interest. The amorous Plummer had 
been just a voice to him till now. It was exciting tc 
see him in the flesh. 

"And who are the rest of them?” 

"They are nearly all members of the family. I 
thought you knew them.” 

"I know Lord Marshmoreton. And Lady Maud. 
And, of course. Lord Belpher.” He caught Percy’s 
eye as it surveyed him coldly from the other side of 
the table, and nodded cheerfully. "Great pal of mine. 
Lord Belpher.” 

The fluffy Miss Plummer twisted her pretty face 
into a grimace of disapproval. 

"I don’t like Percy!” 

"No!” 

"I think he’s conceited.” 

"Surely not? What could he have to be conceited 
about ?” 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


26S 


“He’s stiff.” 

“Yes, of course, that’s how he strikes people at 
first. The first time I met him, I thought he was an 
awful stiff. But you should see him in his moments 
of relaxation. He’s one of those fellows you have 
to get to know. He grows on you.” 

“Yes, but look at that affair with the policeman in 
London. Everybody in the county is talking about 
it.” 

“Young blood!” sighed George. “Young blood! 
Of course, Percy is wild.” 

“He must have been intoxicated.” 

“Oh, undoubtedly,” said George. 

Miss Plummer glanced across the table. 

“Do look at Edwin!” 

“Which is Edwin?” 

“My brother, I mean — look at the way he keeps 
staring at Maud. Edwin’s awfully in love with 
Maud,” she prattled on with engaging frankness. “At 
least he thinks he is. He’s been in love with a different 
girl every season since I came out. And now that 
Reggie Byng has gone and got married to Alice Fara- 
day, he thinks he has a chance. You heard about that, 
I suppose?” 

“Yes, I did hear something about it.” 

“Of course, Edwin’s wasting his time really. I 
happen to know” — Miss Plummer sank her voice to a 
whisper — “I happen to know that Maud’s awfully in 
love with some man she met in Wales last year, but 
the family won’t hear of it.” 

“Families are like that,” agreed George. 

“Nobody knows who he is, but everybody in the 
county knows all about it. Those things get about, 
you know. Of course, it’s out of the question. Maud 


264 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


will have to marry somebody awfully rich or with a 
title. Her family’s one of the oldest in England, you 
know.” 

‘'So I understand.” 

“It isn’t as if she were the daughter of Lord Peebles, 
or somebody like that.” 

“Why Lord Peebles?” 

“Well, what I mean to say is,” said Miss Plummer, 
with a silvery echo of Reggie Byng, “he made his 
money in whisky.” 

“That’s better than spending it that way,” argued 
George. 

Miss Plummer looked puzzled. 

“I see what you mean,” she said a little vaguely. 
“Lord Marshmoreton is so different.” 

“Haughty nobleman stuff, eh?” 

“Yes.” 

“So you think this mysterious man in Wales hasn’t 
a chance?” 

“Not unless he and Maud elope like Reggie Byng 
and Alice. Wasn’t that exciting! Who would ever 
have suspected that Reggie had the dash to do a thing 
like that ? Lord Marshmoreton’s new secretary is very 
pretty, don’t you think ?” 

“Which is she?” 

“The girl in black with the golden hair.” 

“Is she Lord Marshmoreton’s secretary!” 

“Yes, she’s an American girl. I think she’s much 
nicer than Alice Faraday. I was talking to her before 
dinner. Her name is Dore. Her father was a captain 
in the American army, who died without leaving her 
a penny. He was the younger son of a very dis- 
tinguished family, but his family disowned him be- 
cause he married against her wishes.” 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


265 


“Something ought to be done to stop these families,” 
said George. “They’re always up to something. 

“So Miss Dore had to go out and earn her own liv- 
ing. It must have been awful for her, mustn’t it, 
having to give up society.” 

“Did she give up society?” 

“Oh, yes, she used to go everywhere in New York 
before her father died. I think American girls are 
wonderful. They have so much enterprise.” 

George at the moment was thinking that it was in 
imagination that they excelled. 

“I wish I could go out and earn my living,” said 
Miss Plummer. “But the family won’t dream of it.” 

“The family again!” said George sympathetically. 
“They’re a perfect curse.” 

“I want to go on the stage. Are you fond of the 
theater?” 

“I love it. Have you seen Hubert Broadleigh in 
’Twas Once in Spring?” 

“I’m afraid I haven’t.” 

“He’s wonderful. Have you seen Cynthia Dane in 
A Woman’s No?” 

“I missed that one, too.” 

“Perhaps you prefer musical pieces? I saw an 
awfully good musical comedy before I left town. It’s 
called Follow the Girl. It’s at the Regal Theater. 
Have you seen it?” 

“I wrote it.” 

“You— what!” 

“That is to say, I wrote the music.” 

“But the music’s lovely,” gasped little Miss Plummer 
as if the fact made his claim ridiculous. “I’ve been 
humming it ever since.” 


266 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


“I can^t help that. I still stick to it that I wrote 
it.” 

^‘You aren’t George Bevan!” 

‘‘I am!” 

‘'But — ” Miss Plummer’s voice almost failed her — 
“but I’ve been dancing to your music for years I I’ve 
got about fifty of your records at home.” 

George blushed. However successful a man may 
be, he can never get really used to fame at close range. 

“Why, that trickly thing — you know, in the second 
act — is the darlingest thing I ever heard. I’m mad 
about it.” 

“Do you mean the one that goes lumty-tumty-tum, 
tumty-tumty-tum ?” 

“No, the one that goes ta-rummty-tuni-tum, ta- 
tumty-tum-tum. You know, the one about Granny 
dancing the shimmy.” 

“I’m not responsible for the words, you know,”' 
urged George hastily. “Those are wished on me by 
the lyrist.” 

“I think the words are splendid. ‘Although poor 
popper thinks its improper, Granny’s always doing it 
and nobody can stop her 1’ I love it.” Miss Plummer 
leaned forward excitedly. She was an impulsive girl. 
“Lady Caroline!” 

Conversation stopped. Lady Caroline turned. 

“Yes, Millie?” 

“Did you know that Mr. Bevan was the Mr. 
Bevan ?” 

Everybody was listening now. George huddled 
pinkly in his chair. He had not foreseen this ballyhoo- 
ing. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego combined 
had never felt a tithe of the warmth that consumed 
him. He was essentially a modest young man. 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


267 


'The Mr. Bevan?’' echoed Lady Caroline coldly. It 
was painful to her to have to recognize George’s exist- 
ence on the same planet as herself. To admire him, 
as Miss Plummer apparently expected her to do, was 
a loathsome task. She cast one glance, fresh from the 
refrigerator, at the shrinking George, and elevated her 
aristocratic eyebrows. 

Miss Plummer was not damped. She was at the 
hero-worshipping age, and George shared with the 
Messrs. Douglas Fairbanks, Francis X. Bushman, and 
one or two tennis champions an imposing pedestal in 
her Hall of Fame. 

"You know, George Bevan, who wrote the music 
of Follow the Girl.” 

Lady Caroline showed no signs of thawing. She had 
not heard of Follow the Girl. Her attitude suggested 
that, while she admitted the possibility of George hav- 
ing disgraced himself in the manner indicated, it wai. 
nothing to her. 

"And all those other things,” pursued Miss Plum- 
mer indefatigably. "You must have heard his music 
on the talking machine !” 

"Why, of course !” 

It was not Lady Caroline who spoke, but a man 
farther down the table. He spoke with enthusiasm. 

"Of course, by Jove!” he said. "The Schenectady 
Shimmy, by Jove, and all that! Ripping!’^ 

Everybody seemed pleased and interested. Every- 
body, that is to say, except Lady Caroline and Lord 
Belpher. Percy was feeling that he had been tricked. 
He cursed the imbecility of Keggs in suggesting that 
this man should be invited to dinner. Everything had 
gone wrong. George was an undoubted success. The 
majority of the company were solid for him. As far 


268 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


as exposing his unworthiness in the eyes of Maud was 
concerned, the dinner has been a ghastly failure. Much 
better to have left him to lurk in his infernal cottage. 
Lord Belpher drained his glass moodily. He was 
seriously upset. 

But his discomfort at that moment was as nothing 
to the agony which rent his tortured soul a moment 
later. Lord Marshmoreton, who had been listening 
with growing excitement to the chorus of approval, 
rose from his seat. He cleared his throat. It was 
plain that Lord Marshmoreton had something on his 
mind. 

‘‘Er he said. 

The clatter of conversation ceased once more, 
stunned, as it always is at dinner parties when one of 
the gathering is seen to have assumed an upright posi- 
tion. Lord Marshmoreton cleared his throat again. 
His tanned face had taken on a deeper hue, and there 
was a look in his eyes which seemed to suggest that 
he was defying something or somebody. It was the 
look which Ajax had in his eyes when he defied the 
lightning, the look which nervous husbands have when 
they announce their intention of going round the cor- 
ner to bowl a few games with the boys. One could 
not say definitely that Lord Marshmoreton looked pop- 
eyed. On the other hand, one could not assert truth- 
fully that he did not. At any rate, he was manifestly 
embarrassed. He had made up his mind to a certain 
course of action on the spur of the moment, taking 
advantage, as others have done, of the trend of popular 
enthusiasm; and his state of mind was nervous but 
resolute, like that of a soldier going over the top. 
He cleared his throat for the third time, took one swift 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


269 


glance at his sister Caroline, then gazed glassily into 
the emptiness above her head. 

*T take this opportunity,’’ he said rapidly, clutching 
at the tablecloth for support — ‘'Take this opportunity 
of announcing the engagement of my daughter Maud 
to Mr. Bevan. And,” he concluded with a rush, pour- 
ing back into his chair, ‘T should like you all to drink 
their health !” 

There was a silence that hurt. It was broken by 
two sounds, occurring simultaneously in different 
parts of the room. One was a gasp from Lady Caro- 
line. The other was a crash of glass. 

For the first time in a long and unblemished career, 
Keggs the butler had dropped a tray. 


XXIV 


O UT on the terrace the night was very still. From 
a steel-blue sky the stars looked down as calmly 
as they had looked on the night of the ball, when 
George had waited by the shrubbery, listening to the 
wailing of the music and thinking long thoughts. From 
the dark meadows down by the brook came the cry of 
\ corncrake, its harsh note softened by distance. 

“What shall we do?” said Maud. She was sitting 
on the stone seat where Reggie Byng had sat and 
meditated on his love for Alice Faraday and his un- 
fortunate habit of slicing his approach shots. To 
George, as he stood beside her, she was a white blur in 
the darkness. He could not see her face. 

“I don’t know!” he said frankly. 

Nor did he. Like Lady Caroline and Lord Belpher 
and Keggs the butler, he had been completely over- 
whelmed by Lord Marshmoreton’s dramatic announce- 
^ment. The situation had come upon him unheralded 
hy any warning, and had found him unequal to it. 

A choking sound suddenly proceeded from the 
whiteness that was Maud. In the stillness it sounded 
like some loud noise. It jarred on George’s disturbed 
nerves. 

“Please!” 

“I c-can’t help it!” 

“There’s nothing to cry about, really! If we think 
long enough we shall find some way out all right 
Please don’t cry.” 


270 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


271 

“I’m not crying!” The choking sound became an 
unmistakable ripple of mirth. “It’s so absurd 1 Poor 
father getting up like that in front of everyone! Did 
you see Aunt Caroline’s face?” 

“It haimts me still,” said George. “I shall never 
forget it. Your brother didn’t seem any too pleased 
either.” 

Maud stopped laughing. 

“It’s an awful position,” she said soberly. “The an- 
nouncement will be in the Morning Post the day after 
to-morrow. And then the letters of congratulation 
will begin to pour in, and after that the presents. And 
I simply can’t see how we can convince them all that 
there has been a mistake.” Another aspect of the mat- 
ter struck her. “It’s so hard on you, too.” 

“Don’t think about me,” urged George. “Heaven 
knows I’d give the whole world if we could just let 
the thing go on, but there’s no use in discussing im- 
possibilities.” He lowered his voice. “There’s no 
use either in my pretending that I’m not going to have 
a pretty bad time. But we won’t discuss that. It 
was my own fault. I came butting in on your life of 
my own free will, and, whatever happens, it’s been 
worth it to have known you and tried to be of service 
to you.” 

“You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.” 

“I’m glad you think that.” 

“The best and finest friend any girl ever had. I 
wish ” She broke of. “Oh, well!” 

There was a silence. In the castle somebody had 
begun to play the piano. Then a man’s voice began 
to sing. 

“That’s Edwin Plummer,” said Maud. “How badly 
he sings.” 


272 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


George laughed. Somehow the intrusion of Plum- 
mer had removed the tension. Plummer, whether de- 
signedly and as a somber commentary on the situation 
or because he was the sort of man who does sing 
that particular song, was chanting Tosti’s Good-by. 
He was giving to its never very cheery notes a wail- 
ing melancholy all his own. A dog in the stables be- 
gan to howl in sympathy, and with the sound came 
a curious soothing of George’s nerves. He might feel 
broken-hearted later, but for the moment, with this 
double accompaniment, it was impossible for a man 
with humor in his soul to dwell on the deeper emotions. 
Plummer and his canine duettist had brought him to 
earth. He felt calm and practical. 

“We’d better talk the whole thing over quietly,” he 
said. “There’s certain to be some solution. At the 
worst you can always go to Lord Marshmoreton and 
tell him that he spoke without a sufficient grasp of 
his subject.” 

“I could,” said Maud, “but, just at present, I feel as 
if I’d rather do anything else in the world. You don’t 
realize what it must have cost father to defy Aunt 
Caroline openly like that. Ever since I was old enough 
to notice anything. I’ve seen how she dominated him. 
It was Aunt Caroline who really caused all this trouble. 
If it had only been father, I could have coaxed him to 
let me marry anyone I pleased. I wish, if you possibly 
can, you would think of some other solution.” 

“I haven’t had an opportunity of telling you,” said 
George, “that I called at Belgrave Square, as you asked 
me to do. I went there directly I had seen Reggie 
Byng safely married.” 

“Did you see him married ?” 

“I was best man.” 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


273 


‘'Dear old Reggie! I hope he will be happy.” 

“He will, don’t worry about that. Well, as I was 
saying, I called at Belgrave Square and found the 
house shut up. I couldn’t get any answer to the bell, 
though I kept my thumb on it for minutes at a time. 
I think they must have gone abroad again.” 

“No, it wasn’t that. I had a letter from Geoffrey 
this morning. His uncle died suddenly of apoplexy, 
while they were in Manchester on a business trip.” 
She paused. “He left Geoffrey all his money,” she 
went on; “every penny.” 

The silence seemed to stretch out interminably. The 
music from the castle had ceased. The quiet of the 
summer night was unbroken. To George the stillness 
had a touch of the sinister. It was the ghastly silence 
of the end of the world. With a shock he realized that 
even now he had been permitting himself to hope, futile 
as he recognized hope to be. Maud had told him she 
loved another man. That should have been final. And 
yet somehow his indomitable subconscious self had 
refused to accept it as final. But this news ended 
everything. The only obstacle that had held Maud 
and this man apart was removed. There was nothing 
to prevent their marrying. George was conscious of 
a vast depression. The last strand of the rope of 
hope had parted, and he was drifting alone out into the 
ocean of desolation. 

“Oh!” he said, and was surprised that his voice 
sounded very much the same as usual. Speech was 
so difficult that it seemed strange that it should show 
no signs of effort. “That alters everything, doesn’t 


274 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


^‘He said in his letter that he wanted me to meet 
him in London, and talk things over, I suppose/’ 

"‘There’s nothing now to prevent your going — I 
mean, now that your father has made this announce- 
ment you are free to go where you please.” 

“Yes, I suppose I am.” 

There was another silence. 

“Ever3rthing’s so difficult,” said Maud. 

“In what way?” 

“Oh, I don’t know.” 

“If you are thinking of me,” said George, “please 
don’t. I know exactly what you mean. You are hat- 
ing the thought of hurting my feelings. I wish you 
would look on me as having no feelings. All I want 
is to see you happy. As I said just now, it’s enough 
for me to know that I’ve helped you. Do be reasonable 
about it. The fact that our engagement has been offi- 
cially announced makes no difference in our relations 
to each other. As far as we two are concerned, we 
are exactly where we were the last time we met. It’s 
no worse for me now than it was then to know that I’m 
not the man you love, and that there’s somebody else 
you loved before you ever knew of my existence. For 
goodness sake, a girl like you must be used to having 
men tell her that they love her and having to tell them 
that she can’t love them in return.” 

“But you’re so different.” 

“Not a bit of it. I’m just one of the crowd.” 

“I’ve never known anybody quite like you.” 

“Well, you’ve never known anybody quite like Plum- 
mer, I should imagine. But the thought of his suffer- 
ings didn’t break your heart.” 

“I’ve known a million men exactly like Edwin 
Plummer,” said Maud emphatically. “All the men I 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


275 


ever have known have been like him, quite nice and 
pleasant and negative. It never seemed to matter re- 
fusing them. One knew that they would just be a 
little bit piqued for a week or two and then wander 
amiably off and fall in love with somebody else. But 
you’re different. You matter.” 

“That is where we disagree. My argument is that, 
where your happiness is concerned, I don’t matter.” 

Maud rested her chin on her hand and stared out 
into the velvet darkness. 

“You ought to have been my brother instead of 
Percy,” she said at last. “What chums we should have 
been ! And how simple that would have made every- 
thing !” 

“The best thing for you to do is to regard me as an 
honorary brother. That will make everything simple.” 

“It’s easy to talk like that. No, it isn’t, it’s horribly 
hard. I know exactly how difficult it is for you to 
talk as you have been doing, to try to make me feel 
better by pretending the whole trouble is just a trifle. 
It’s strange. We have only really met for a few 
minutes at a time, and three weeks ago I didn’t know 
there was such a person as you, but somehow I seem 
to know everything you’re thinking. I’ve never felt 
like that before with any man, even Geoffrey. He al- 
ways puzzled me.” 

She broke off. The corncrake began to call again 
out in the distance. 

“I wish I knew what to do,” she said with a catch 
in her voice. 

“I’ll tell you in two words what to do. The whole 
thing is absurdly simple. You love this man and he 
loves you, and all that kept you apart before was the 
fact that he could not afford to marry you. Now that 


276 A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


he is rich there is no obstacle at all. I simply won’t 
let you look on me and my feelings as an obstacle. 
Rule me out altogether. Your father’s mistake has 
made the situation a little more complicated than it 
need have been, but that can easily be remedied. 
Imitate the excellent example of Reggie Byng. He 
was in a position where it would have been embarrass- 
ing to announce what he intended to do, so he very 
. sensibly went quietly off and did it and left everybody 
to find out about it after it was done. I’m bound to 
say I never looked on Reggie as a master mind, but, 
when it came to finding a way out of embarrassing 
situations, one has to admit that he had the right idea. 
Do what he did.” 

Maud started. She half rose from the stone seat. 
George could hear the quick intake of her breath. 

^‘You mean — run away?” 

^^Exactly, run away!” 

An automobile swung round the corner of the castle 
from the direction of the garage, and drew up, purring, 
at the steps. There was a flood of light and the 
sound of voices as the great door opened. Maud 
rose. 

“People are leaving,” she said. “I didn’t know it 
was so late.” She stood irresolutely. “I suppose I 
ought to go in and say good-by, but I don’t think I 
can.” 

“Stay where you are. Nobody will see you.” 

More automobiles arrived. The quiet of the night 
was shattered by the noise of their engines. Maud 
sat down again. 

“I suppose they will think it very odd of me not 
being there.” 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS ^^77 

“Never mind what people think; Reggie Byng 
didn’t/^ 

Maud’s foot traced circles on the dry turf, 

“What a lovely night,” she said. “There’s no dew 
at all.” 

The automobiles snorted, tooted, backfired and 
passed away. Their clamor died in the distance, leav- 
ing the night a thing of peace and magic once more. 
The door of the castle closed with a bang. 

“I suppose I ought to be going in now,” said Maud. 

“I suppose so. And I ought to be there, too, politely 
making my farewells. But something seems to tell 
me that Lady Caroline and your brother will be quite 
ready to dispense with the formalities. I shall go 
home.” 

They faced each other in the darkness. 

“Would you really do that?” asked Maud. “Run 
away, I mean, and get married in London?” 

“It’s the only thing to do.” 

“But can one get married as quickly as that?” 

“At a registrar’s? Nothing simpler. You should 
have seen Reggie Byng’s wedding. It was over before 
one realized it had started. A snuffy little man in a 
black coat with a cold in his head asked a few ques- 
tions, wrote a few words, and the thing was done.” 

“That sounds rather — dreadful.” 

“Reggie didn’t seem to think so.” 

“Unromantic, I mean — ^prosaic.” 

“You would supply the romance.” 

“Of course one ought to be sensible. It is just the 
same as a regular wedding.” 

“In its effects, absolutely.” 

They moved up the terrace together. On the gravel 
drive by the steps they paused. 


278 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


*T\l do it!’^ said Maud. 

George had to make an effort before he could reply. 
For all his sane and convincing arguments, he could 
not check a pang at this definite acceptance of them. 
He had begun to appreciate now the strain under which 
he had been speaking. 

"'You must,’' he said. ‘"Well, good-by.” 

There was light on the drive ; he could see her face. 
Her eyes were troubled. 

""What will you do?” she asked. 

‘"Do?” 

‘"I mean, are you going to stay on in your cottage?” 

""No, I hardly think I could do that. I shall go 
back to London to-morrow, and stay at the Carlton 
for a few days. Then I shall sail for America. There 
are a couple of pieces I’ve got to do for the fall. I 
ought to be starting on them.” 

Maud looked away. 

"‘You’ve got your work,” she said almost inaudibly. 

George understood her. 

""Yes, I’ve got my work.” 

‘"I’m glad.” 

She held out her hand. 

"‘You’ve been very wonderful. Right from the be- 
ginning you’ve been — oh, what’s the use of my saying 
anything !” 

“I’ve had my reward — I’ve known you. We’re 
friends, aren’t we?” 

“My best friend.” 

“Pals?” 

“Pals.” 

They shook hands. 


XXV 


T WAS never so upset in my life!’’ said Lady Caro- 
line. She had been saying the same thing and many 
other things for the past five minutes. Until the de- 
parture of the last guest she had kept an icy command 
of herself and shown an unruffled front to the world. 
She had even contrived to smile. But now, with the 
final automobile whirring its way homeward, she had 
thrown off the mask. The very furniture of Lord 
Marshmoreton’s study seemed to shrink, seared by the 
flame of her wrath. As for Lord Marshmoreton him-- 
self he looked quite shriveled. 

It had not been an easy matter to bring her erring 
brother to bay. The hunt had been in progress fully 
ten minutes before she and Lord Belpher finally cor- 
nered the poor wretch. His plea, through the keyhole 
of the locked door, that he was working on the family 
history and could not be disturbed, was ignored; and 
now he was face to face with the avengers. 

‘T cannot understand it,” continued Lady Caroline. 
‘'You know that for months we have all been strain- 
ing every nerve to break off this horrible entanglement, 
and, just as we had begun to hope that something 
might be done, you announce the engagement in the 
most public manner. I think you must be out of your 
mind. I can hardly believe even now that this appall- 
ing thing has happened. I am hoping that I shall 
wake up and find it is all a nightmare. How you can 
have done such a thing, I cannot understand.” 

279 


280 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


“Quite said Lord Belpher. 

If Lady Caroline was upset there are no words in 
the language that will adequately describe the emotions 
of Percy. From the very start of this lamentable 
episode in high life, Percy had been in the forefront 
of the battle. It was Percy who had had his best hat 
smitten from his head in the full view of all Piccadilly. 
It was Percy who had suffered arrest and imprison- 
ment in the cause. It was Percy who had been crippled 
for days owing to his zeal in tracking Maud across 
country. And now all his sufferings were in vain. 
He had been betrayed by his own father. 

There was, so historians of the Middle West tell us, 
a man of Chicago named Young, who once, when his 
nerves were unstrung, put his mother — unseen — in the 
chopping machine, and canned her and labeled her 
“Tongue.’’ It is enough to say that the glance of 
disapproval which Percy cast upon his father at this 
juncture would have been unduly severe if cast by 
the Young offspring upon their parent at the moment 
of confession. 

Lord Marshmoreton had rallied from his initial 
panic. The spirit of revolt began to burn again in his 
bosom. Once the die is cast for revolution, there can 
be no looking back. One must defy, not apologize. 
Perhaps the inherited tendencies of a line of ancestors 
who, whatever their shortcomings, had at least known 
how to treat their womenfolk, came to his aid. Possibly 
there stood by his side in this crisis ghosts of dead and 
buried Marshmoretons, whispering spectral encourage^ 
ment in his ear, the ghosts, let us suppose, of that earl 
who, in the days of the seventh Henry, had stabbed his 
wife with a dagger to cure her of a tendency to lec- 
ture him at night ; or of that other earl who, at a pre- 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


281 


vious date in the annals of the family, had caused two 
aunts and a sister to be poisoned apparently from a 
mere whim. At any rate, Lord Marshmoreton pro- 
duced from some source sufficient courage to talk 
back. 

‘'Silly nonsense!’' he grunted. “Don’t see what 
you’re making all this fuss about. Maud loves the 
fellow. I like the fellow. Perfectly decent fellow. 
Nothing to make a fuss about. Why shouldn’t I an- 
nounce the engagement?” 

“You must be mad!” cried Lady Caroline. “Your 
only daughter and a man nobody knows anything 
about!” 

“Quite !” said Percy. 

Lord Marshmoreton seized his advantage with the 
skill of an adroit debater. 

“That’s where you’re wrong. I know all about him. 
He’s a very rich man. You heard the way all those 
people at dinner behaved when they heard his name. 
Very celebrated man! Makes thousands of pounds a 
year. Perfectly suitable match in every way.” 

“It is not a suitable match,” said Lady Caroline 
vehemently. “I don’t care whether this Mr. Bevan 
makes thousands of pounds a year or twopence- 
ha’penny. The match is not suitable. Money is not 
everything.” 

She broke off. A knock had come to the door. The 
door opened and Billie Dore came in. A kind-hearted 
girl, she had foreseen that Lord Marshmoreton might 
be glad of a change of subject at about this time. 

“Would you like me to help you to-night?” she 
asked brightly. “I thought I would ask if there was 
anything you wanted me to do.” 

Lady Caroline snatched hurriedly at her aristocratic 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


S82 


calm. She resented the interruption acutely, but her 
manner, when she spoke, was bland. 

“Lord Marshmoreton will not require your help to- 
night,” she said. “He will not be working.” 

“Good night,” said Billie. 4 

“Good night,” said Lady Caroline. 

Percy scowled a valediction. 

“Money,” resumed Lady Caroline, “is immaterial. 
Maud is in no position to be obliged to marry a rich 
man. What makes the thing impossible is that this Mr. 
Bevan is nobody. He comes from nowhere. He has 
no social standing whatsoever.” 

“Don’t see it,” said Lord Marshmoreton. “The fel- 
low’s a thoroughly decent fellow; that's all that mat- 
ters.” 

“How can you be so pig-headed! You are talking 
like an imbecile. Your secretary. Miss Dore, is a nice 
girl; but how would you feel if Percy were to come 
to you and say that he was engaged to be married 
to her?” 

“Exactly!” said Percy. “Quite!” 

Lord Marshmoreton rose and moved to the door. 
He did it with a certain dignity, but there was a 
strange, hunted expression in his eyes. 

“That would be impossible,” he said. 

“Precisely,” said his sister. “I am glad that you 
admit it.” 

Lord Marshmoreton had reached the door, and was 
standing holding the handle. He seemed to gather 
strength from its support. 

“I’ve been meaning to tell you about that,” he said. 

“About what?” 

“About Miss Dore. I married her myself last 
Wednesday,” said Lord Marshmoreton, and disap- 
peared like a diving duck. 


XXVI 


A t a quarter past four in the afternoon, two 
days after the memorable dinner party at which 
Lord Marshmoreton had behaved with so notable a 
lack of judgment, Maud sat in Ye Cosy Nooke, wait- 
ing for Geoffrey Raymond. He had said in his tele- 
gram that he would meet her there at four-thirty; but 
eagerness had brought Maud to the tryst a quarter of 
an hour ahead of time; and already the sadness of 
her surroundings was causing her to regret this im- 
pulsiveness. Depression had settled upon her spirit. 
She was aware of something that resembled fore- 
boding. 

Ye Cosy Nooke, as its name will immediately sug- 
gest to those who know their London, is a teashop in 
Bond Street, conducted by distressed gentlewomen. In 
London, when a gentlewoman becomes distressed — 
which she seems to do on the slightest provocation — 
she collects about her two or three other distressed 
gentlewomen, forming a quorum, and starts a teashop 
in the West End, which she calls Ye Oak-Leaf, Ye 
Olde Willow-Pattern, Ye Linden-Tree, or Ye Snug 
Harbor, according to personal taste. There, dressed 
in Tyrolese, Japanese, Norwegian or some other exotic 
costume, she and her associates administer refresh- 
ments of an afternoon with a proud languor calculated 
to knock the nonsense out of the cheeriest customer. 
Here you will find none of the coarse bustle and effi- 
ciency of the rival establishments of Lyons and Co.y 
283 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


nor the glitter and gayety of Rumpelmayer’s. These 
places have an atmosphere of their own. They rely 
for their effect on an insufficiency of light, an almost 
total lack of ventilation, a property chocolate cake 
which you are not supposed to cut, and the sad aloof- 
ness of their ministering angels. It is to be doubted 
whether there is anything in the world more damping 
to the spirit than a London teashop of this kind, unless 
it be another London teashop of the same kind. 

Maud sat and waited. Somewhere out of sight a 
kettle bubbled in an undertone, like a whispering 
pessimist. Across the room two distressed gentle- 
women in fancy dress leaned against the wall. They, 
too, were whispering. Their expressions suggested 
that they looked on life as low and wished they were 
well out of it, like the body upstairs. One assumed 
that there was a body upstairs. One cannot help it at 
these places. One’s first thought on entering is that 
the lady assistant will approach one and ask in a 
hushed voice ‘Tea or chocolate? And would you care 
to view the remains ?” 

Maud looked at her watch. It was twenty past four. 
She could scarcely believe that she had been there only 
five minutes, but the ticking of the watch assured her 
that it had not stopped. Her depression deepened. 
Why had Geoffrey told her to meet him in a cavern of 
gloom like this instead of at the Savoy? She would 
have enjoyed the Savoy. But here she seemed to have 
lost beyond recovery the first gay eagerness with which 
she had set out to meet the man she loved. 

Suddenly she began to feel frightened. Some evil 
spirit, possibly the kettle, seemed to whisper to her 
that she had been foolish in coming here, to cast 
doubts on what she had hitherto regarded as the one 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


285 


rock-solid fact in the world, her love for Geoffrey. 
Could she have changed since those days in Wales? 
Life had been so confusing of late. In the vividness of 
recent happenings those days in Wales seemed a long 
way off, and she herself different from the girl of a 
year ago. She found herself thinking about George 
Bevan. 

It was a curious fact that, the moment she began 
to think of George Bevan she felt better. It was as 
if she had lost her way in a wilderness and had met 
a friend. There was something so capable, so sooth- 
ing about George. And how well he had behaved at 
that last interview. George seemed somehow to be 
part of her life. She could not imagine a life in 
which he had no share. And he was at this moment 
probably packing to return to America, and she would 
never see him again. Something stabbed at her heart. 
It was if she were realizing now for the first time 
that he was really going. 

She tried to rid herself of the ache at her heart by 
thinking of Wales. She closed her eyes, and found 
that that helped her to remember. With her eyes 
shut, she could bring it all back — that rainy day, the 
graceful, supple figure that had come to her out of the 
mist, those walks over the hills. If only Geoffrey 
would come ! It was the sight of him that she needed. 

“There you are !” 

Maud opened her eyes with a start. The voice had 
sounded like Geoffrey's, but it was a stranger who 
stood by the table, and not a particularly prepossessing 
stranger. In the dim light of Ye Cosy Nooke, to 
which her opening eyes had not yet grown accustomed, 
all she could see of the man was that he was remark- 
ably stout. She stiffened defensively. This w’as what 


286 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


a girl who sat about in tearooms alone had to expect. 

‘'Hope I’m not late/’ said the stranger, sitting down 
and breathing heavily. ‘T thought a little exercise 
would do me good, so I walked.” 

Every nerve in Maud’s body seemed to come to life 
simultaneously. She tingled from head to foot. It 
was Geoffrey ! 

He was looking over his shoulder and endeavoring, 
by snapping his fingers, to attract the attention of the 
nearest distressed gentlewoman; and this gave Maud 
time to recover from the frightful shock she had re- 
ceived. Her dizziness left her, and, leaving, was 
succeeded by a panic dismay. This couldn’t be Geof- 
frey! It was outrageous that it should be Geoffrey! 
And yet it undeniably was Geoffrey. For a year she 
had prayed that Geoffrey might be given back to her, 
and the gods had heard her prayer. They had given 
her back Geoffrey, and with a careless generosity they 
had given her twice as much of him as she had ex- 
pected. She had asked for the slim Apollo whom she 
had loved in Wales, and this colossal changeling had 
arrived in his stead. 

We all of us have our prejudices. Maud had a 
prejudice against fat men. It may have been the 
spectacle of her brother Percy, bulging more and more 
every year she had known him, that had caused this 
kink in her character. At any rate, it existed ; and she 
gazed in sickened silence at Geoffrey. He had turned 
again now, and she was enabled to get a full and com- 
plete view of him. He was not merely stout, he was 
gross. The slim figure which had haunted her for a 
year had spread into a sea of waistcoat. The keen 
lines of his face had disappeared altogether. 

One of the distressed gentlewomen had approached 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


28 T 


with a slow disdain, and was standing by the table, 
brooding on the corpse upstairs. It seemed a shame 
to bother her. 

‘Tea or chocolate?’^ she inquired proudly. 

“Tea, please,’’ said Maud, finding her voice. 

“One tea,” sighed the mourner. 

“Chocolate for me,” said Geoffrey briskly, with the 
air of one discoursing on a congenial topic. “I’d like 
plenty of whipped cream. And please see that it’s 
hot.” 

“One chocolate.” 

Geoffrey pondered. This was no light matter that 
occupied him. 

“And bring some fancy cakes — I like the ones with 
icing on them — and some teacake and buttered toast. 
Please see that there’s plenty of butter on it.” 

Maud shivered. This man before her was a man in 
whose lexicon there should have been no such word 
as butter, a man who should have called for the police 
had some enemy endeavored to thrust butter upon 
him. 

“Well,” said Geoffrey, leaning forward, as the 
haughty ministrant drifted away, “you haven’t changed 
a bit — to look at, I mean.” 

“No?” said Maud. 

“You’re just the same. I think I” — he squinted 
down at his waistcoat — “I have put on a little weight. 
I don’t know if you notice it?” 

Maud shivered again. He thought he had put on 
a little weight, and didn’t know if she noticed it! She 
was oppressed by the eternal melancholy miracle of the 
fat man who does not realize that he has become fat. 

“It was living on the yacht that put me a little out 
of condition,” said Geoffrey. “I was on the yacht 


288 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


nearly all the time since I saw you last. The old boy 
had a Japanese cook and lived pretty high. It was 
apoplexy that got him. He had a great time, touring 
about. We were on the Mediterranean all last winter, 
mostly at Nice.” 

‘T should like to go to Nice,” said Maud, for some- 
thing to say. She was feeling that it was not only 
externally that Geoffrey had changed. Or had he in 
reality always been like this, commonplace and prosaic, 
and was it merely in her imagination that he had been 
wonderful? 

‘Tf you ever go,” said Geoffrey earnestly, ‘^don’t fail 
to lunch at the Hotel Cote d’ Azure. They give you 
the most amazing selection of hors-d'oeuvres you ever 
saw. Crayfish as big as baby lobsters ! And there’s a 
fish — I’ve forgotten it’s name — it’ll come back to me — 
that’s just like the Florida pompano. Be careful to 
have it broiled, not fried. Otherwise you lose the 
flavor. Tell the waiter you must have it broiled, with 
melted butter and a little parsley and some plain boiled 
potatoes. It’s really astonishing. It’s best to stick to 
fish on the Continent. People can say what they like, 
but I maintain that the French don’t really understand 
steaks or any sort of red meat. The veal isn’t bad, 
though I prefer our way of serving it. Of course what 
the French are real geniuses at is the omelet. I re- 
member, when we put in at Toulon for coal, I went 
ashore for a stroll, and had the most delicious omelet 
with chicken livers, beautifully cooked, at quite a small, 
unpretentious place near the harbor. I shall always 
remember it.” 

The mourner returned, bearing a laden tray, from 
which she removed the funeral bakemeats and placed 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


289 


them limply on the table. Geoffrey shook his head^ 
annoyed. 

‘T particularly asked for plenty of butter on my 
toast!” he said. ‘T hate buttered toast if there isn’t 
lots of butter. It isn’t worth eating. Get me a couple 
of pats, will you, and I’ll spread it myself. Do hurry, 
please, before the toast gets cold. It’s no good if the 
toast gets cold. They don’t understand tea as a meal 
at these places,” he said to Maud, as the mourner with- 
drew. “You have to go to the country to appreciate 
the real thing. I remember we lay off Lyme Regis 
down Devonshire way, for a few days, and I went 
and had tea at a farmhouse there. It was quite amaz- 
ing I Thick Devonshire cream and homemade jam and 
cakes of every kind. This sort of thing here is just a 
farce. I do wish that woman would make haste with 
that butter, it’ll be too late in a minute.” 

Maud sipped her tea in silence. Her heart was like 
lead within her. The recurrence of the butter theme 
as a sort of leit motif in her companion’s conversation 
was fraying her nerves till she felt she could endure 
little more. She cast her mind’s eye back over the 
months and had a horrid vision of Geoffrey steadily 
absorbing butter, day after day, week after week, ever 
becoming more and more of a human keg. She 
shuddered. 

Indignation at the injustice of fate in causing her to 
give her heart to a man, and then changing him into 
another and quite different man, fought with a cold 
terror, which grew as she realized more and more 
clearly the magnitude of the mistake she had made. 
She felt that she must escape. And yet how could she 
escape? She had definitely pledged herself to this- 
man. 


290 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


‘‘Ah!” cried Geoffrey gayly, as the pats of butter 
arrived. “That’s more like it!” He began to smear 
the toast. 

Maud averted her eyes. She had told him that she 
loved him, that he was the whole world to her, that 
there would never be anyone else. He had come to 
claim her. How could she refuse him just because he 
was about thirty pounds overweight? 

Geoffrey finished his meal. He took out a ciga- 
rette. 

“No smoking, please!” said the distressed gentle- 
woman. He put the cigarette back in its case. There 
was a new expression in his eyes now, a tender ex- 
pression. For the first time since they had met Maud 
seemed to catch a far-off glimpse of the man she had 
loved in Wales. Butter appeared to have softened 
Geoffrey. 

“So you couldn’t wait!” he said with pathos. 

Maud did not understand. 

“I waited over a quarter of an hour. It was you 
who were late.” 

“I don’t mean that; I am referring to your engage- 
ment. I saw the announcement in the Morning Post. 
Well, I hope you will let me offer you my best wishes. 
This Mr. George Bevan, whoever he is, is lucky.” 

Maud had opened her mouth to explain, to say that 
it was all a mistake. She closed it again without 
speaking. 

“So you couldn’t wait!” proceeded Geoffrey with 
gentle regret. “Well, I suppose I ought not to blame 
you. You are at an age when it is easy to forget. 
I had no right to hope that you would be proof against 
a few months’ separation. I expected too much. But 
it is ironical, isn’t it! There was I, thinking always 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


291 


of those days last summer when we were everything to 
each other, while you had forgotten me. Forgotten 
me!’^ sighed Geoffrey. He picked a fragment of cake 
absently off the tablecloth and inserted it in his mouth. 

The unfairness of the attack stung Maud to speech. 
She looked back over the months, thought of all she 
had suffered, and ached with self-pity. 

“1 hadn’t !’" she cried. 

‘‘You hadn’t? But you let this other man, this 
George Bevan, make love to you.” 

“I didn’t ! That was all a mistake.” 

“A mistake?” 

“Yes. It would take too long to explain, but ” 

She stopped. It had come to her suddenly, in a flash 
of clear vision, that the mistake was one which she 
had no desire to correct. She felt like one who, lost 
in a jungle, comes out after long wandering into the 
open air. For days she had been thinking confusedly, 
unable to interpret her own emotions ; and now every- 
thing had abruptly become clarified. It was as if the 
sight of Geoffrey had been the key to a cipher. She 
loved George Bevan, the man she had sent out of 
her life forever. She knew it now, and the shock of 
realization made her feel faint and helpless. And, 
mingled with the shock of realization, there came to 
her the mortification of knowing that her aunt. Lady 
Caroline, and her brother Percy had been right after 
all. What she had mistaken for the love of a life- 
time had been, as they had so often insisted, a mere 
infatuation, unable to survive the spectacle of a 
Geoffrey who had been eating too much butter and 
had put on flesh. 

Geoffrey swallowed his piece of cake and bent for- 
ward. 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


“Aren’t you engaged to his man Bevan?” 

Maud avoided his eye. She was aware that the 
crisis had arrived and tliat her whole future hung 
on her next words. 

And then Fate came to her rescue. Before she 
could speak there was an interruption. 

“Pardon me,” said a voice. “One moment !” 

So intent had Maud and her companion been on 
their own affairs that neither of them observed the 
entrance of a third party. This was a young man 
with mouse-colored hair and a freckled, badly shaven 
face which seemed undecided whether to be furtive or 
impudent. He had small eyes, and his costume was a 
blend of the flashy and the shabby. He wore a Derby 
hat, tilted a little rakishly to one side, and carried a 
small bag, which he rested on the table between them. 

“Sorry to intrude, miss.” He bowed gallantly to 
Maud. “But I want to have a few words with Mr. 
Spencer Gray here.” 

Maud, looking across at Geoffrey, was surprised to 
see that his florid face had lost much of its color. His 
mouth was open and his eyes had taken on a glassy 
expression. 

“I think you have made a mistake,” she said coldly. 
She disliked the young man at sight. “This is Mr. 
Raymond.” 

Geoffrey found speech. 

“Of course Pm Mr. Raymond!” he cried angrily. 
“What do you mean by coming and annoying us like 
this!” 

The young man was not discomposed. He appeared 
to be used to being unpopular. He proceeded as though 
there had been no interruption. He produced a dingy 
card. 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS mS 

“Glance at that/^ he said. “Morris Willoughby and 
Son, Solicitors. I^m Son. The guv’nor put this little 
matter into my hands. Fve been looking for you for 
days, Mr. Gray, to hand you this paper.” He opened 
the bag like a conjurer performing a trick, and brought 
out a stiff document of legal aspect. “You’re a wit- 
ness, miss, that I’ve served the papers. You know what 
this is, of course?” he said to Geoffrey; “action for 
breach of promise of marriage. Our client. Miss 
Yvonne Sinclair, of the Regal Theater, is suing for ten 
thousand pounds. And if you ask me,” said the young 
man with genial candor, dropping the professional 
manner, “I don’t mind telling you I think it’s a walk- 
over! It’s the best little action for breach we’ve 
handled for years.” He became professional again. 
“Your lawyers will no doubt communicate with us in 
due course. And if you take my advice,” he concluded, 
with another of his swift changes of manner, “you’ll 
get ’em to settle out of court, for, between you and me 
and the lamp-post, you haven’t an earthly chance!” 

Geoffrey had started to his feet. He was puffing 
with outraged innocence. 

“What the devil do you mean by this?” he de- 
manded. “Can’t you see you’ve made a mistake? My 
name is not Gray. This lady has told you that I am 
Geoffrey Raymond!” 

“Makes it all the worse for you,” said the young 
man imperturbably, “making advances to our client 
under an assumed name. We’ve got letters and wit- 
nesses and the whole bag of tricks. And how about 
this photo? He dived into the bag again, “Do you 
recognize that, miss?” 

Maud looked at the photograph. It was unmistak- 
ably Geoffrey. And it had evidently been taken re- 


S94 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


cently, for it showed the later Geoffrey, the man of 
substance. It was a full-length photograph, and 
across the stout legs was written in a flowing hand the 
legend “To Babe from her little Footles.” Maud gave 
a shudder and handed it back to the young man, just 
as Geoffrey, reaching across the table, made a grab 
for it. 

“I recognize it,” she said. 

Mr. Willoughby Junior packed the photograph away 
in his bag and turned to go. 

“That’s all for to-day then, I think,” he said affably. 

He bowed again in his courtly way, tilted the Derby 
hat a little more to the left, and, having greeted one 
of the distressed gentlewomen who loitered limply in 
his path with a polite “Gangway, if you please^ 
Mabel!” which drew upon him a freezing stare of 
which he seemed oblivious, he passed out, leaving be- 
hind him strained silence. 

Maud was the first to break it. 

“I think ril be going,” she said. 

The words seemed to rouse her companion from his 
stupor. 

“Let me explain 1” 

“There’s nothing to explain.” 

“It was just a — it was just a passing — it was noth- 
ing, nothing!” 

“Footles 1” murmured Maud. 

Geoffrey followed her as she moved to the door. 

“Be reasonable!” pleaded Geoffrey. “Men aren’t 
saints! It was nothing! Are you going to end — 
everything — just because I lost my head ?” 

Maud looked at him with a smile. She was con- 
scious of an overwhelming relief. The dim interior 
of Ye Cosy Nooke no longer seemed depressing. She 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


295 


could have kissed this unknown “Babe” whose busi- 
nesslike action had enabled her to close a regrettable 
chapter in her life with a clear conscience. 

“But you haven’t only lost your head, Geoffrey,” 
she said, “you’ve lost your figure as well.” 

She went out quickly. With a convulsive bound 
Geoffrey started to follow her, but was checked be- 
fore he had gone a yard. 

There are formalities to be observed before a patron 
can leave Ye Cosy Nooke. 

“If you please!” said a distressed, gentlewomanly 
voice. 

The lady whom Mr. Willoughby had addressed as 
Mabel — erroneously, for her name was Ernestine — ■ 
was standing beside him with a slip of paper. 

“Six and twopence,” said Ernestine. 

For a moment this appalling statement drew the 
unhappy man’s mind from the main issue. 

“Six and twopence for a cup of chocolate and a few 
cakes?” he cried, aghast. “It’s robbery!” 

“Six and twopence, please!” said the queen of the 
bandits with undisturbed calm. She had been through 
this sort of thing before. Ye Cosy Nooke did not get 
many customers, but it made the most of those it did 
get. 

“Here!” Geoffrey produced a half sovereign. “I 
haven’t time to argue!” 

The distressed brigand showed no gratification. She 
had the air of one who is aloof from worldly things. 
All she wanted was rest and leisure, leisure to meditate 
upon the body upstairs. All flesh is as grass. We are 
here to-day and gone to-morrow. But there beyond 
the grave is peace. 

“Your change?” she said. 


296 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


“Damn the change !” 

“You’re forgetting your hat.” 

“Damn my hat!” 

Geoffrey dashed from the room. He heaved his 
body through the door. He lumbered down the stairs. 

Out in Bond Street the traffic moved up and the 
traffic moved down. Strollers strolled upon the side- 
walks. 

But Maud had gone. 


Xxvii 


T N HIS bedroom at the Carlton Hotel George Bevan 
^ was packing. That is to say, he had begun pack- 
ing; but for the last twenty minutes he had been sitting 
on the side of the bed, staring into a future which be- 
came bleaker and bleaker, the more he examined it. In 
the last two days he had been no stranger to these gray 
moods, and they had become harder and harder to 
dispel. Now with the steamer trunk before him gap- 
ing to receive its contents, he gave himself up whole- 
heartedly to gloom. 

Somehow the steamer trunk, with all that it implied 
of partings and voyagings, seemed to emphasize thd 
fact that he was going out alone into an empty world. 
Soon he would be on board the liner every revolution 
of whose engines would be taking him further away 
from where his heart would always be. There were 
moments when the torment of this realization became 
almost physical. 

It was incredible that, three short weeks ago, he had 
been a happy man. Lonely, perhaps, but only in a 
vague, impersonal way; not lonely with this aching 
loneliness that tortured him now. What was there left 
for him? As regards any triumphs which the future 
might bring him in connection with his work, he was, 
as Mac the stage-door keeper had said, ‘Tlarzy.” Any 
success he might have would be but a stale repetition 
of other successes which he had achieved. He would 

go on working, of course, but 

297 


298 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


The ringing of the telephone bell across the room 
jerked him back to the present. He got up with a mut- 
tered malediction. Someone calling up again from the 
theater probably. They had been doing it all the time 
since he had announced his intention of leaving for 
America by Saturday’s boat. 

‘‘Hello?” he said wearily. 

‘Ts that George ?” asked a voice. It seemed familiar, 
but all female voices sound the same over the tele- 
phone. 

“This is George,” he replied. “Who are you?” 

“Don’t you know my voice ?” 

“I do not.” 

“You’ll know it quite well before long. I’m a great 
talker.” 

“Is that Billie?” 

“It is not Billie, whoever Billie may be. I am a 
female, George.” 

“So is Billie.” 

“Well, you had better run through the list of your 
feminine friends till you reach me.” 

“I haven’t any feminine friends.” 

“None?” 

“No.” 

“That’s odd.” 

“Why?” 

“You told me in the garden two nights ago that you 
looked on me as a pal.” 

George sat down abruptly. He felt boneless. 

“Is — is that you?” he stammered. “It can’t be — 
Maud!” 

“How clever of you to guess. George, I want to 
ask you one or two things. In the first place, are you 
fond of butter?” 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


299 


George blinked. This was not a dream. He had 
just bumped his knee against the corner of the tele- 
phone table, and it still hurt most convincingly. He 
needed the evidence to assure himself that he was 
awake. 

‘‘Butter?” he queried. “What do you mean?” 

“Oh, well, if you don’t even know what butter means, 
I expect it’s all right. What is your weight, George ?” 

“About a hundred and eighty pounds. But I don’t 
understand.” 

“Wait a minute.” There was a silence at the other 
end of the wire. “About thirteen stone,” said Maud’s 
voice. “I’ve been doing it in my head. And what was 
it this time last year ?” 

“About the same, I think. I always weigh about the 
same.” 

“How wonderful! George!” 

“Yes?” 

“This is very important. Have you ever been in 
Florida?” 

“I was there one winter.” 

“Do you know a fish called the pompano?” 

“Yes.” 

“Tell me about it.” 

“How do you mean? It’s just a fish. You eat it.” 

“I know. Go into details.” 

“There aren’t any details. You just eat it.” 

The voice at the other end of the wire purred with 
approval. 

“I never heard anything so splendid. The last man 
who mentioned pompano to me became absolutely lyri- 
cal about sprigs of parsley and melted butter. Well, 
that’s that. Now here’s another very important point. 
How about wall paper?” 


800 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


George pressed his unoccupied hand against his fore- 
head. This conversation was unnerving him. 

"T didn’t get that,” he said. 

*™n’t get what?” 

‘T mean, I didn’t quite catch what you said that 
time. It sounded to me like What about wall 
paper ?’ ” 

‘Tt was ‘What about wall paper?’ Why not?” 

“But,” said George weakly, “it doesn’t make any 
sense.” 

“Oh, but it does. I mean, what about wall paper 
for your den ?” 

“My den?” 

“Your den. You must have a den. Where do you 
suppose you’re going to work, if you don’t? Now my 
idea would be some nice quiet grass cloth. And of 
course you would have lots of pictures and books. And 
a photograph of me. I’ll go and be taken specially. 
Then there would be a piano for you to work on, and 
two or three really comfortable chairs. And — well, 
that would be about all, wouldn’t it?” 

George pulled himself together. 

“Hello!” he said. 

“Why do you say ‘Hello ?’ ” 

“I forgot I was in London. I should have said 
‘Are you there?’ ” 

“Yes, I’m here.” 

“Well, then, what does it all mean?” 

“What does what mean ?” 

“What you’ve been saying — about butter and pom- 
panos and wall paper and my den all that? I don’t 
understand.” 

“How stupid of you! I was asking you what sort 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


301 


of wall paper you would like in your den after we were 
married and settled down/^ 

George dropped the receiver. It clashed against the 
side of the table. He groped for it blindly. 

‘^Hello!" he said. 

“Don’t say Hello ! It sounds so abrupt !” 

“What did you say then?” 

“I said ^Don’t say Hello!’ ” 

“No, before that! Before that! You said some- 
thing about getting married.” 

“Well, aren’t we going to get married? Our en- 
gagement is announced in the Morning Post/' 

“But— But ” 

“George !” Maud’s voice shook. “Don’t tell me 
you are going to jilt me!” she said tragically. “Be- 
cause, if you are, let me know in time, as I shall want 
to bring an action for breach of promise. I’ve just met 
such a capable young man who will look after the whole 
thing for me. He wears a bowler hat on the side of 
his head and calls waitresses ‘Mabel.’ Answer yes or 
no. Will you marry me ?” 

“But — But — how about — I mean, what about — I 
mean how about ” 

“Make up your mind what you mean.” 

“The other fellow!” gasped George. 

A musical laugh was wafted to him over the wire. 

“What about him?” 

“Well, what about him?” said George. 

“Isn’t a girl allowed to change her mind?” said 
Maud. 

George yelped excitedly. Maud gave a cry. 

“Don’t sing!” she said. “You nearly made me 
deaf.” 

“Have you changed your mind?” 


802 


A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 


'‘Certainly I have!’^ 

“And you really think — You really want — I mean, 
you really want — You really think 

“Don't be so incoherent !” 

“Maud!" 

“Well?" 

“Will you marry me?" 

“Of course I will." 

“Gosh!" 

“What did you say ?" 

“I said Gosh ! And listen to me, when I say Gosh 
I mean Gosh ! Where are you ? I must see you. When 
can we meet? I want to see 3^ou! For heaven's sake 
tell me where you are ! I want to see you ! Where an 
you ? Where are you ?" 

“I'm downstairs." 

“Where? Here at the Carlton?" 

“Here at the Carlton !" 

“Alone?" 

“Quite alone." 

“You won't be long!" said George. 

He hung up the receiver, and bounded across the 
room to where his coat hung over the back of a chair 
The edge of the steamer trunk caught his shin.^ 

“Well," said George to the steamer trunk, “am 
what are you butting in for ? Who wants you, ! 
should like to know !" 


THE END 


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